


Portal: The Misadventures of Caroline II

by Lagiacrus (DemonFang)



Category: Half-Life, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, will add more tags later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 05:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 72,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonFang/pseuds/Lagiacrus
Summary: This is something I wrote way back in 2014. It contains lots of original content and crossovers with the world of Half-life which lives outside of Aperture Science, so if that's not your thing, this one may not be for you. Original blurb:"Twenty years after the events of Portal 2, unusual and possibly supernatural circumstances lead Chell's daughter, Caroline II to the Enrichment Center she's only heard nightmarish stories about, only to find that the notorious GLaDOS is still doing science and is inviting her to help out. Life is good for a while, but anywhere Caroline II goes, trouble pretty much always follows."





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Well here we are again. While I haven't worked on this series in a long time it feels good to be uploading it somewhere for other people to see it. 
> 
> Way back in 2014 when I was first starting university, this story was my baby. I spent every spare moment I could find working on it and turning it into, at the time, one of the best things I'd ever written. None of it would have been possible without the help of Iammemyself either - If you're here on Ao3, hey there! Long time no see! 
> 
> I decided to transfer what fanfiction I had over here and stop being so bashful about uploading my newer stuff, so I have no doubt that this story could pale in comparison to some of the other things I'll upload, but either way, I hope people enjoy it for what it is, as I'm still quite proud of this work. Now, feel free to read on!

I held my breath. My prey was in sight. So close, I could already taste it. Its antlers glinted in the light from the setting sun, its breath flowed from its nostrils as condensation and suffocated, vanishing in the air. My bow was steady, the arrow ready to pierce the beast’s heart. This particular stag, the one with abnormally large antlers and an odd, creamy coat had mysteriously eluded my arrows for months. However, today was the day. I’d catch him and would wear his hide as a furry, fancy frock! 

A twig snapped. The stag raised his head. My breath hitched, and I released the arrow. It catapulted through the air, slicing the very sky in half, before it took a detour through the windows of car park barriers, popped out the other side of them and embedded itself into the leg of the deer. Damn, it would take another arrow to fell him – but it was already too late, the stag charged hectically into the trees, blood trailing in a majestic arc from his flank. I relaxed, sighing, and attempted to comfort my rumbling belly.   
“Sorry, Buddy, I guess we’re going another day without food…” I grumbled, and looked out over the vast expanse of the car park where the deer had once stood. At its head was a large, rectangular white building with no windows and presumably no doors. All that adorned its face was a black, protruding collection of letters: “Aperture Labratories”. Besides the overgrown potato plant sticking out of the top of the building, it was pretty bland and not much to look at – but I wasn’t stupid. My mother had told me the stories of that dreadful place. She had experienced it first-hand after all. 

Within its walls was a crumbling shell of a research facility, with labs and testing chambers stretching deep underground. The leader of this forgotten land, the very thing which is keeping even the outside of the building standing, was a master computer who went by the name of GLaDOS – and, personally, I thought she sounded awesome! Mom had told me all about her, too – she had no morality, no empathy at all – an enemy of everyone and everything, but all she ever wanted to do was carry out her scientific tests. She never got along with mom, apparently. On top of that, there was a huge variety of other robots, all managed and bossed around by GLaDOS. I often asked mom why she had wanted to leave all that behind, and each time she simply said; “GLaDOS told me to leave and not come back.” 

Sometimes I’d dream about it – getting to see the magical world inside those whitewashed walls, meeting GLaDOS and Wheatley and the Turrets and-!  
“There you are,” Mom appeared through the trees behind me, giving me her usual tired smile. “Any luck?” I frowned.  
“I shot him in the leg but never brought him down.” I replied, and she nodded grimly.  
“I thought that might happen; there was no chance of a clear shot in this light,” She laughed, “So I took the liberty of catching some squirrels.” My face fell but my stomach seemed to jump for joy.  
“Squirrels again?” I groaned as we walked back into the woods. We had something of a home setup there.   
“Well, I caught some newts too, if you prefer…”  
“On second thought, I’m fine with squirrels.” Newts were second best.

We lived in something of a ramshackle fort, apparently built about thirty years ago by survivors of the alien invasion that wiped out the entire world’s population of humans, the only exception being small rebellious groups that were clever enough to hide. When mom first left Aperture twenty years ago, the group that had lived in this fort took her in. The chief of that group, apparently, was my father – but it was only mom and I now. She had always refused to tell me where the others had gone. Over the years I had developed ideas, but I’d never felt the need to bring it up with her. If dad wasn’t here with us, then he was obviously nothing special, right?

At night we lit the giant campfire at the centre of the fort, and then retired to bed in the ‘chief cabin’, which is where dad had once stayed with mom before I was born. Oh, wait, hang on – I’ve told you so much but you don’t even know my name! I’m called Caroline, and welcome to my incredibly boring post-apocalyptic existence. 

At night I liked to stay up and listen to the coyotes howl and claw at the wooden walls of our slowly rotting fort. It reminded me of how lucky mom and I were to be alive, in a world where the humans are the hunted, rulers having fallen from their station at the hands of the Combine forces. I often wished I could find somewhere else for us to go, somewhere safer, where nothing out here in the wilderness could touch us – but to this particular pack of mutated, monstrous coyotes, everything in this area was known to them – the places where we had lived or tried to hide – they also knew Aperture, and often stayed as far away from it as they could. I often wondered why. 

That particular night, I had a strange dream. I saw a monstrous, gleaming white machine rotting away, the Aperture logo plastered on its scratched and splintered hide. It had moved upon noticing me – a bright yellow light from what I assumed was its face shone down on me. Vines and trees sheltered it from me, but it still acted terrified, like cornered prey. Ironically, I lifted my bow, and shot an arrow right into its eye. I never saw what happened next – a howl from the horrid beasts outside roused me from the dream, and I could barely remember what I had seen – all I knew was that it had been very peculiar, and that a white monster had been glaring at me with a yellow eye. Although, my thoughts drifted to the plain white building of Aperture. My desire to explore it was stronger than ever. What was that white creature and why was it in my head? Was it one of the robots? Was it trying to send me a message of some kind? Surely, the robots must have all malfunctioned and rotted away by now, even GLaDOS. The place would be unclaimed territory, gripped only by nature’s creations. Nothing could have contacted me from in there, much less telepathically. However, I couldn’t fight the urge any longer – I wanted, no, needed to see the fantastic underground world that had held my mother trapped for so long.

Luck had been on my side that night. Not only did I manage to get ready and arm myself without waking up mom, I also managed to dodge the coyotes and lose them, somewhere far behind me. My troubles continued when, as I reached the beginning of the Aperture car park, a violent whirring signalled a helicopter flying somewhere nearby. I ducked into the barrier checking station, and looked out of the shattered windows to see a dinky little thing, barely large enough to be considered a helicopter flying overhead, sending a spotlight down onto the street. Was it Combine? No, there apparently wasn’t many of those left – most of them had just packed up and disappeared nearly a century ago. So was it other humans? There was a flutter of excitement in my chest but I didn’t drop my guard. Not all humans were friendly, or so mom said. 

It drifted by harmlessly, and I caught a glimpse of two men within. I waited until it had disappeared over the trees, and climbed out of the little building, continuing on my way to the derelict laboratories that had caught my attention and imagination for so long. When I reached the brilliant white wall, I placed my hand upon it – and then a thought struck me. How was I going to get in if this place had no entrance? 

Well, even the strongest of defences has a gap the size of the eye of a needle, right? There had to be some way in, even if nature had made it herself. I’d just need to look around. I scaled a chain-link fence around the side of the structure and fell into a corporate car park, which had also served as a drop-off point for goods entering the facility. Unfortunately the shutters were locked tightly. After trying them for several minutes, my body finally gave in and I fell to my knees. This place was a fortress! Why were they so desperate to keep people out!?

There was the flutter of wings to my right. Upon the fence had landed a large crow, black as the night itself. She preened her feathers calmly as they shone in the moonlight, and I admired her for as long as she would allow. Then, she uttered a caw which shattered the uneasy silence of the darkness, and took off towards the building. I watched her curiously, and saw her peck once, twice, three times at the wall beside the shutters. What was she doing?

Suddenly, the wall was revealed to be a moving panel attached to a mechanical arm. It opened for the bird and she flew in. Without giving it a second thought, I dived in after her, and the panel closed behind me. Now, I was ingeniously trapped between countless mechanical arms, each attached to another panel that made the outside wall of the building. This was already impressive… 

I snaked my way through the sea of machinery until I finally reached a malfunctioning arm facing the inside of the facility, which was agitatedly moving its panel back and forward, giving me a few seconds to dart through it. When it moved out of my way I leaped through it, tumbled along the surprisingly soft ground, and came to stop in a giant warehouse, stacked to the very ceiling with countless storage units, like the ones I’d seen on the backs of overturned trucks. The floor gave away at one point ahead of me, and I looked down to see a sheer drop into a bottomless pit. The storage units stretched down past it, and I gulped. This isn’t quite what I’d imagined…

That crow had completely vanished from sight, but I could hear it calling out. I decided to try and follow its voice – the crow would lead me somewhere, surely.

I caught hold of a large metal rail above the bottomless pit, which stretched in multiple directions throughout the maze of storage containers. The crow’s cries lead me left, so I began the timely process of inching my way along the rail, being careful not to fall to my doom. The rail, although flat at the top, was only about ten inches across – I could barely fit on the thing, much less use it as a bridge. Nevertheless, I made small progress on my hands and knees, but each time the rail wobbled or creaked under my weight, I found myself regretting my actions more and more. I also found myself regretting all of those extra newts I scoffed after dinner. There was a noise, like a sliding door opening somewhere in the warehouse. I froze, holding my breath. The sound of bright, tuneful whistling reached my ears. I resisted the urge to look around as the whistling edged closer, and instead decided to keep moving forward, as quietly as possible. There was another vibration when my hand slipped off the rail and my chin hit the metal, causing the whistling to stop. My chest swelled in fear as a fearsome whirring sound from behind me grew louder in volume, until the source of the noise was under me. For a moment, there was silence.  
“…Ah! There you are! It seems we have a little intruder!” A British accent sounded from directly underneath me. I risked the look down, and saw a little metal ball suspended from the bottom of the rail, looking up at me with a bright blue light, supposed to be an eye. I recognized him from mom’s stories – that was Wheatley, the Intelligence Dampening Core who took over the facility. But I thought he was thrown into space?  
“H-Hi.” I rasped, my voice wavering from fear.   
“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a human attempt to use the management rail before! I must say, you look very odd sitting up there, if you don’t mind me saying.” He admitted with a nod, and the slightest hint of a smile appeared on my face. He didn’t seem hostile, at least not at the moment.  
“Uhh, would you happen to be stuck? Because, uhh, I could probably help with that, if you want- u-unless if you want to be up there, then that’s fine, I’ll leave you alone! But if not, then…” He ranted, my smile widened all the while. Mom was right, he was quite quirky.  
“A hand would be nice, thank you.” I admitted and he looked a little shocked, his blue eye shrinking to the size of a dot.   
“W-Well, as you can see… I don’t have hands. But, you can grab on to me, and I’ll carry you to the walkway, uhh, if that’s not too hard for you.” He explained, and I reached out, grabbing hold of the handle just above his eye. Surprised, he shot back with a yelp and I slid off the rail. Trying not to look down, I desperately gripped the handle with both hands, and realised I was face to face with his big eye. Had he not been a robot, I would have felt incredibly awkward at that moment.  
“Oh, sorry, sorry! Are you okay!?” He sounded petrified, he was shaking ever so slightly inside his metal casing.  
“Yeah, I’m fine! Can we talk when I’m standing!?” I squeaked. I could already feel my grip slipping.   
“Oh, yeah yeah! Just… gimme a second here…” He slowly manoeuvred his way along, constantly checking on me and keeping me distracted from what lay below with small talk. He was surprisingly considerate, contrasting from what mom told me about him.   
“So, what brings you to Aperture? Here to see the sights? Hah… there aren’t any sights…”  
“We used to have a café here, years ago… I wonder if it had good cake?”  
“It’s been a while since I last saw a human, you know! Oh, I LOVE the humans, you’re a very intelligent race, very graceful too, although you can be a little stupid… A-Although I’ve never seen one as pretty as you, so you’ve got that going for you.”   
“Ooh, what’s it like outside!? Is it true what the scientists told me, that if I breathed the air I WOULD DIE?”

“Right, hang on for just a moment more, Luv! Nearly there!” He assured me one agonizing minute later, and the second he stopped, I looked down, taking in the much welcomed sight of a mesh walkway, leading straight to a fire exit.   
“Uhh… you can let go now…” He seemed to mutter, and with realization I let myself drop onto the walkway, accidentally landing on my back.  
“Oh, I didn’t want you to fall! Did you hurt yourself?” He spluttered as I clambered to my feet with a wince, pacing back and forth on his little rail above my head, looking down at me with a shrunken blue eye.   
“I’m okay,” I rasped. “Are you Wheatley?” 

He seemed taken aback, if just for a moment, and he narrowed his eye.  
“Y-Yes, I’m Wheatley,” He spoke, his uncertainty from earlier not completely gone. “What’s your name?”  
“I’m Caroline. I’m the daughter of a former Test Subject.” I stated bluntly and once again, he withdrew slightly.   
“Are you HER daughter!? Oho, She’s been busy, huh!?” He gave a nervous laugh.   
“You don’t need to sound so nervous, I’m not here to destroy you or anything like that.” My eyes landed on the fire exit. Might as well see where it goes. He pursued me, running alongside me on his rail.  
“Y-You’re not?”   
“No, my motives are ulterior,” I grumbled. “Where’s GLaDOS?”   
“WHUH!?” His blue optical lens did a 360 degree spin in its casing, coming back to land on me and then going wide. “Y-You’re here for HER!?”   
“I’m not here to challenge her to a duel or something! I just want to talk with her.”  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Luv…” His tone was gentle but desperate, his words caused me to stop and look to him.  
“She can’t be that bad, right?” I could see from that look in his lens – yes, she was that bad. She was just as awful as mom had made her out to be. She was the icon of all evil, the harbinger of the end of this triumphant facility, the bastion of cruelty and cold-blooded murder. She was the deity of this place, a being of extreme raw power, a mechanical monster who just so much as had to glance at me and I was dead, the destroyer and saviour of Aperture Science - but this did not even deter me slightly. Without a second thought, I had him take me right to her, deep into the heart of Aperture.

It was troublesome getting into her chamber, but she had made no effort to stop me. She was an impressive creature, yes, but her age and experiences were definitely starting to show. Her white chassis had begun to strip of colour and shine, parts of minor importance were strewn about abandoned within her chamber, and her wide yellow lens was dimmed, like a half-shut eye. We regarded each other quietly for what seemed like a lifetime. Any moment I was expecting her to unleash hell down upon me, but she did no such thing. Mr.Mashy the spike plate did not catastrophically descend from the ceiling with the viciousness of an ancient warrior, the floor did not give away from beneath my feet and send me deep into the rumbling bowels of the incinerator, and her maintenance claws did not rush out of nowhere and grasp me, rending the flesh from my bones and knocking the air from my lungs. All she did was silently watch me, tilting her head somewhat to the side, perceiving me from a different angle. 

After an age of silence, her voice rumbled into the chamber like the growl of an enraged dragon who also happened to be in heat.  
“To whom do I owe this pleasure?”

Her words were calm, her mannerisms even calmer. I could hardly believe that this was GLaDOS, the supercomputer that was singlehandedly responsible for the flawless deaths of everybody in this facility, including women and children. She seemed far too composed to be a serial killer, even for a robot. 

“My name is Caroline,” the second the name left my lips her entire demeanour changed. She reared back with a start, narrowing her lens like a suspicious eye. “I came here to see the facility that held my mom for so long.”   
“You are the offspring of that psychopathic mute. I find that hard to believe – I fail to see how she of all women could attract a man.” Her words contained no trace of emotion, but I felt she was talking with some venom.  
“It was easy,” I smirked. “She started talking.”

“She named you Caroline.” The computer noted. Silence settled again as I listened to the whirring of her hard drive. She was thinking.  
“Yes.” I finally responded when she said nothing, even long after the sound of the hard drive had stopped.  
“I wonder if that was her attempt to trigger some sort of emotional response from me, or if she simply wanted to taunt me. Either way, her attempt was a failure.” She blandly informed me before turning away, facing the back of her chamber.   
“I have a feeling that is a lie.” Before I knew what I was saying, she had snapped back around and a maintenance claw had snatched me up, leaving me hovering uselessly right above her eerily glowing lens.  
“You have quite a mouth on you. It makes a change from your mother.” I had a feeling she was angry, if the fact that she was slowly tightening her hold was anything to go on.  
“Oh no, I inherit my awesomeness from my mother.” I felt the need to clarify, and something like a gruesome laugh sounded from the suspended supercomputer.   
“Out of all the things she is, awesome is not one of them.”

There was a spark of electricity somewhere above, and in the next instance the entire chamber seemed to switch off like it had been unplugged at the wall. GLaDOS writhed in silence for a moment, before falling limp, hanging lifelessly like an animal caught in a rope trap. Her maintenance arm seemed to be locked in place. Unluckily, I could not get her to loosen her grip at all – I was effectively trapped in the grip of a possibly dead robot. Excellent. 

“Files uploaded successfully. Commencing reboot.” A voice sounded from high above, and I gulped. Files…?

The lights in the chamber switched back on, and GLaDOS’ hardware roared to life. Her lens switched on, signalling her awakening and she lifted herself up, her mechanical gaze coming to rest once again on me. I did not break eye contact – I could not.

Much to my shock, her grip lessened and I was able to squirm out of her hand, sitting on the edge of her two metal fingers instead.   
“You said you were… Chell’s daughter.” She reminded herself and I nodded. She regarded me for a moment longer, all sense of hostility gone.   
“…How is your mother?” She then asked, but looked away like she was ashamed to be asking, her lens going dull.   
“She’s okay, I guess. As good as she can be.” My response was steely – was this one of her elaborate tricks that mom had warned me about?   
“Well, I suppose that’s good.” She responded and we fell into silence again. Various devices within her body shuddered and whined, like they were being worked too hard.   
“GLaDOS, are you okay?” I don’t know why I asked – maybe I felt obligated, because I was invading her personal space so profusely.  
“I feel like something has changed.” She sounded deeply troubled – there was more emotion in her voice than I ever would have expected. She looked back to me, her lens burning deep gold. “Why are you here? I have no doubt that your mother told you never to come here.”  
“I came here of my own accord, if you must know. The outside is becoming dangerous for us.”  
“Wasn’t it always dangerous for you humans and your simple bodies?” Was her reply. Perhaps.

“But that does not fully answer my question.” She pointed out.  
“Honestly, I wanted to see if you guys had bought the farm yet,” I grinned in amusement as her lens widened in surprise. “If you had, mom and I were going to move in and make this place a fort.”   
“Are you implying that it isn’t already?” She asked with a hint of annoyance, and my smirk broadened.   
“Well, if it is, prove it.”

A strange robotic sound came from her – something like a growl or a mutter. Her claw brought me closer to her one all-seeing eye, and she let out another strange laugh.  
“Unfortunately, you remind me of your mother,” Then, her lens widened as if she had been hit by realization, and she looked down at me, edging ever so slightly closer to my face.  
“You will make the perfect Test Subject.”  
“What’s in it for me?” I questioned with a smirk.  
“Standard Aperture Science Testing Protocol requires that Test Subjects be rewarded with cake upon the completion of a testing track. Also and probably more importantly, I’ll let you and your mother stay here in the facility.” She stated matter-of-factly, like she was reciting an old textbook.   
“…Will there actually be cake or is it all a lie?” My next question threw her slightly off guard for a moment, but then her optic narrowed in delight.  
“…Finally, a human that isn’t stupid. No, of course there is no cake,” She seemed to purr. “We might actually get along, you and I.”


	2. Why Should I Trust You

I never thought I would need to even think about entering that dreaded place again. Even as I glided through the car park, heading towards the chain-link fence that covered the back of the facility, the whole thing seemed like a dream – or rather, the calm before the storm in a vividly detailed nightmare. If my suspicions were correct and Caroline was in there, I would be getting her back. If there was a single scratch on her, I would blow the whole facility to smithereens. GLaDOS, that horror, would have a lot to answer for if something had happened to her.

Once I slipped in through the sewers, disabling sentry turrets as I went, it took some careful movements and risky decisions to find a ladder into the facility. It was surprising that GLaDOS had left such a gaping hole in her defence untended to, not that I was complaining. I climbed up the slippery ladder and up into the facility, where I found six sniper beams focused on my forehead. I had come out in one of the older test chambers which GLaDOS had neglected, but she had already been expecting me.  
“Found you.” One of the turrets said in their usual singsong voice as they pointed their guns at me in unison. With a sigh of annoyance, I emerged from the manhole with my hands behind my head. Then, with the blankest expression I could manage, I brought my foot around and delivered a harsh roundhouse kick to the side of one turret, knocking it into the others. I took a dive behind a loose tile in the wall as all of the turrets fell onto their backs and began firing rapidly, their little screams drowned out by the clinking of their guns.

When silence fell, I emerged and slipped past their deactivated forms, using a cube to climb up through a damaged tile and into the maintenance corridors that the man called Doug Rattmann had once favoured. After that, finding GLaDOS was plain sailing – in fact, it was only about twenty minutes later that I was hovering from a vent, right above GLaDOS herself – and Caroline was with her, just as I thought.

They were deep in discussion about me, and did not seem to be hostile towards each other – which was surprising, at least to me. Caroline had not been hurt. She was sitting leisurely upon a Companion Cube, facing GLaDOS.  
“So everything mom ever told me about this place is all true? It all happened?” She asked the supercomputer, and GLaDOS nodded in return.  
“From murdering me to sending that little ball into space, it all happened. Although your mother will have left out some parts. I’m sure she left out how much of a monster she was.” She replied. I saw Caroline smile fondly – she’d always liked my stories, possibly more than she’d care to let on.  
“Do you hate mom for everything that happened?” She went on to ask. I was expecting an interesting answer from GLaDOS, if she replied at all.

She shifted her chassis slightly to the left and turned her lens away from her, the bright yellow beam from her optic hitting the wall opposite her instead.  
“No.” She answered after a moment. This response surprised me – I had been expecting her to shoot her digital mouth off while mocking me, so this was an unexpected, albeit pleasant shock. 

Caroline seemed as equally shocked, looking up at the great white metal beast with wide eyes.  
“But why? She always said you did.”   
“Things have changed in twenty years,” GLaDOS said simply.  
“By ‘changed’ you mean…?” Caroline pressed.  
“I’m not quite as… ‘vicious’, as I was.” She took a few moments to settle on an appropriate word, before turning to face Caroline again. For some reason I failed to believe that… although it did explain why my daughter was still alive. Despite GLaDOS’ words making perfect sense to me, Caroline seemed confused, crossing her arms and tilting her head to the side as she regarded the giant robot for countless moments.  
“I was constructed to test. Upon my final activation, I tested but to a fault. Testing is my life - but in my earliest years I took it too far, enslaving the whole facility to use as lab rats on my testing tracks. That is why this place remains devoid of humans.” She explained. I already knew all of this – I had been the one who had destroyed her not long after the last of the scientists died.  
“But you say you’re not like that now.” Caroline said, and GLaDOS fell silent once again.  
“…Yes. The events that transpired between me and your mother twenty years ago may have resulted in some… problems, with my programming. Problems I have not been able to get rid of.” She explained.  
“What sort of problems?” In any normal situation, GLaDOS would have snapped and killed her by now – she did always hate questions. But, she answered them calmly, if she was in any sort of mood at all she had become very good at hiding it.  
“…It will sound minor to you… but I grew a conscious. At the time, I thought there was something really wrong with me.”   
“Let me guess, along with this conscious you developed emotions and a sense of morality – then, you started to change, right?” Caroline smirked as she cut ahead of the robot, causing her to withdraw slightly.  
“…That’s exactly what happened.” She gave a gentle nod, looking away for but a moment.  
“I read a book like this once,” Caroline went on. “Upon developing a conscious you lost your drive for killing, actually developing respect for living creatures and those robots that you helped create, am I right?”   
“…I have never put it into words before, but yes.” GLaDOS responded. I finally felt like it was time to intervene – if what I was hearing was true, I wouldn’t be dead the second she laid her eye on me. That would give me enough time to grab Caroline and get out of there through the maintenance corridors and sewers. 

I dangled through the roof, landing on the great metal rings acting as some of GLaDOS’ most vital components. Watching the two of them converse carefully, I continued my descent, eventually taking the risk of using GLaDOS herself as a ladder to the ground. When I jumped onto her side and scaled down her wires, she did not seem to notice – soon, I was safely on the ground - unfortunately, GLaDOS’ senses had not dulled. She reared up, looking down upon me with that stupid yellow optic.  
“Ahh. There you are. We’ve been expecting you.” My face fell immediately. So, she had known about me. Damn, her security cameras must have still been operational in that testing chamber.  
“We were just talking about you, mom!” Caroline waved hello, her expression the brightest I’d seen it in a very long time. It would have been nice to see, had it not been for the situation. I tried to call out to her but my voice froze up – it always did in the presence of one of these damned robots. They thought I was a mute, no, I was silent because I was frightened. Even now that GLaDOS had supposedly redeemed herself, all I had to do was think back to my childhood here, and I knew that she wouldn’t just change so suddenly. She had to be messing with us. Despite how brave I had acted in the past, I was still terrified of her.

“Don’t look so scared. I have no interest in killing your daughter.” GLaDOS sternly spoke, and Caroline nodded.  
“Mom, it’s okay. I don’t think she’s lying.” She beckoned me closer, and I slowly made my way over, making sure my hand was inches away from the shotgun at any given time, my eyes never leaving GLaDOS’ own bright lens.   
“You don’t know her like I do. Everything she says could potentially be a lie.” I whispered to her, and she gulped.  
“It’s rude to whisper, you know.” GLaDOS bluntly stated and we snapped to attention.   
“Sorry!” Caroline blurted out and I elbowed her.  
“Do not ever apologise to her. She is never worthy of an apology.” I whispered to her as she rubbed her sore stomach.  
“There you go again with the whispering… I was not aware you could make any sound at all.” GLaDOS would have been smirking had she been able, I just knew it. 

“Mom, hold on – I think she could be serious. Not even GLaDOS could make up something so twisted, right?” She stood between GLaDOS and I, cutting off the one-sided staring contest I had started with her.   
“Are you being serious right now!? Have my stories told you nothing about her!?” I squeaked as quietly as I could.   
“Yeah, I am being serious. I think we should give her a chance to prove herself. She already said that we could stay here.”   
“SHE SAID WHAT!?” I screeched at full volume, and covered my hands with my mouth the second GLaDOS reared up high above us, her eye narrowed in delight.  
“So, that’s what you sound like. It’s nice to finally hear your voice, considering how long we’ve known each other.” She seemed to be taunting me, but at the same time it seemed playful, like she knew it would provoke a negative response.   
“You shut up!” I pointed viciously at the robot, who let out an odd robotic noise similar to laughing.   
“Well, isn’t this a nice reunion. But, didn’t I tell you not to come back?” The robot inquired and I nodded.  
“And I assure you I wouldn’t be here in this hellhole at all if it wasn’t for the fact that Caroline was here!” I spat, and she nodded.  
“Yes, she did tell me you would come,” She turned away for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the opposite wall. “Well, all things considered, it is nice to see you again.”  
“Fuck off,” I sneered and grabbed Caroline’s hand. “Come on, we need to get out of here.” She resisted until I spun around to glare at her.  
“NOW, Caroline.”  
“No, mom!” She wrenched her hand out of my grip and stood firm, her expression focused. She would not be leaving here willingly, I noted. Why couldn’t she see? GLaDOS could not be trusted.

“Your daughter is right, you know. I offered minutes ago for the two of you to stay here in the facility. I really don’t mind, much.” The white machine turned back around, talking to us as if she wasn’t even aware of our scrap. I had to admit I had missed this place – I had never seen the world outside of it until twenty years ago, but I had always been too terrified of GLaDOS to return. Although she seemed so calm now. She wasn’t angry, or particularly worked up by our arrivals. If anything she seemed…somewhat pleased. Perhaps there was truth to her words after all. With a growl I turned to face her, releasing Caroline who obediently ran to GLaDOS’ side. I gave a wavering smirk, making a small attempt to shake the sweat from my brow.  
“Why should I trust you?”  
“On any other day, I would say you shouldn’t. But things have changed – the facility is beginning to fall apart again. I can only sustain so much of it myself,” She fell silent for a moment again, as if steeling herself for what she was about to say. To prove my point, her voice wavered. “If you and Caroline stayed here and assisted me in fixing everything, we could continue doing science,” She hesitated for another moment. “And I wouldn’t kill you.” 

I gazed up into her yellow optic for a considerable amount of time, trying to come to a decision. Caroline looked at me longingly – I could tell she was sick of hunting, sick of hiding from coyotes, sick of stowing away at night when she should be free to do as she wished – she had brought it up with me before. Outside was nothing – a shell of its former glory, brought to its knees over a century before and it never recovered. The United States of America no longer existed – the borders for states had faded, signs of life were faint. America was literally a floating slab of post-apocalyptic tribes of humans, who robbed each other to survive. 

Aperture, however – it hadn’t changed at all. It was still the scientific haven I had loved as a child, it was still filled with perky robots and functioning testing tracks. GLaDOS had successfully kept the place in check. Ironically, it was the safest place we could possibly live out our lives right now.   
“You know what,” I said with reluctance and held out my hand. One of her maintenance claws extended from the ceiling, where she brought it up to me. I took hold of her top finger, and we shook. “Science can still be done.”   
“Excellent,” She purred. “Repairs to the test chambers can begin immediately. Make yourselves at home in the meantime – but don’t break anything.” Her gaze was focused on me as she issued the warning.

As we left GLaDOS’ chamber and entered the main facility, we began converting two of the offices into bedrooms, using old stasis beds from the Relaxation Vaults with the lids removed and also the tables equipped with radios. The radios of course were useless, only playing back pre-recorded messages and that same ghastly tune from before the Combine apocalypse, but they still filled the empty corridors with noise and made it seem more alive.   
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” I said to Caroline as we pushed her bed in her designated room (formerly Doug Rattmann’s office, I noted) into place. She rolled her eyes and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, giving me a weird half-hug which seemed to be making her uncomfortable. Despite that, I returned it – it was comforting.  
“Don’t be like that, mom,” She said with a grin. “We’re away from that horrible fort! Isn’t that good enough? Besides, GLaDOS didn’t kill us. That must mean something.”   
“I suppose, but…”  
“No buts! Didn’t you say that when you woke up after throwing Wheatley into space, that she was so relieved you were okay? I don’t know how she feels about you but she clearly doesn’t want you dead.” She scolded me fiercely, but I frowned.  
“That was all before she deleted Caroline…”  
“Oh, yeah…” 

We fell into silence for a second, until she piped up; “Who was Caroline, anyway?”   
“I wish I knew.” I tried to say, but it came out more like a whisper. We sat down on the stasis bed then and hugged each other in silence, long into the night. I can’t even remember when I fell asleep – but we were still holding on to one another, and it made the whole experience a lot less frightening for me. 

Several times through the night I awoke from a light sleep to noises from below in the testing chambers – tiles being moved around, creaks of metal beams being bent out of shape and replaced, entire rooms being forcibly rearranged as GLaDOS fixed everything up. With every noise that signalled GLaDOS’ actions, my heart did a backflip in apprehension. Soon it was hammering in my ears, screaming a plethora of warnings that in any other situation would send me running for the hills. I could not believe we were here, it felt like a cross between a nightmare and a dream come true. I hated this place, but I loved it – Every year I had spent away from here was agony, but I was always too scared to come back. I was relieved, glad to be back home, but also terrified that GLaDOS would betray us. I envied Caroline, who was still awake beside me, staring at a glowing orange computer screen across the room on Rattmann’s former desk in a bored fashion. She seemed so unfazed by all of this – but an excited glint occasionally flashed in her eyes. She was probably thinking about what tomorrow would bring. She was so much like her father – she’d always held the mind-set that she wasn’t living life if she wasn’t always risking her neck in the process. She was so obsessed with that cream-coloured stag because it had charged her once – every time she hunted it, it was like she was daring it to do it again. 

Caroline had an odd sixth sense, too. She seemed to be able to detect the goodness within people’s hearts from just laying eyes on them – I had never guessed it would work with robots, considering they usually lacked hearts, but if she could sense even just a tiny piece of goodness within GLaDOS, it was possibly worth trusting her. Her senses had never been wrong before, and although I saw plenty reason to doubt them now, I decided to ignore my worries just this once. I finally managed to drift off, wondering with some anticipation what my first test would be the next day.


	3. Can I Keep It?

A week into our new lives with GLaDOS within the facility and we still hadn’t been dropped into Android Hell, locked in a room with deadly neurotoxin or deliberately killed in a test. It seemed that any doubts I’d had about Caroline’s evaluation of GLaDOS had been proved wrong. It appeared that the giant supercomputer really had changed. We still did not get along, and I was not capable of talking in front of her unless if Caroline was in the room with me, which always gave her fodder for mocking me. Still, I did my best to ignore her jibes and completed the tests she set us with ease. She had given us a roof over our heads, after all. That was good enough for me.

Curiously enough, she had invented four-way Co-op testing chambers which we tackled without complaint alongside her two robots, Atlas and P-Body. I remembered when GLaDOS had told me about them back when we were trying to reach Wheatley, and he’d announced he no longer needed us. He had apparently found them in storage, causing GLaDOS to panic. They were practically her children, she loved them dearly – although she would never show it, which I thought was hilarious. Despite this, she seemed pretty emotionless when they died, simply rebuilding them with a sigh of annoyance. Us, however…

“Atlas, pull me up, pull me up!!” Caroline screeched. When using momentum to get from one side of the chamber to the other, she had misjudged the placement of her portals and had just missed the ledge on the other side (featuring the cube button and the exit door), causing her to nearly fall face-first into the toxic liquid boiling away below. Luckily, she had managed to grab onto the side of a ledge hovering over the pool, at the expense of her portal gun, and Atlas was now charging to grab her. He grabbed her hands and growled something in his odd robotic language as he hoisted her up. She collapsed against him, gasping for breath. I shot a portal down to the walkway where they were standing and jumped over.  
“Are you alright?” I took her from Atlas and held her close, rubbing her back as she calmed down.  
“Y-Yeah, right as rain. Lost the gun though,” She cast a glance back at the pool and I nodded.  
“It’s okay, we can get through this without it. You had the right idea.” I told her and she gave a wavering smile. I looked up to P-Body who was standing on a ledge above us, struggling with a storage cube, nearly wrestling with it.  
“P-Body, bring that cube down here!” I called and she nodded, opening a portal nearby her and blasting another nearby my own before sliding through to join us. She handed the cube to me and I waited patiently for Caroline’s portals to vanish with the eventual destruction of the portal gun. Upon this happening I indicated to Atlas and he shot his blue portal into the floor of the hole below the ledge, and then his purple portal on the wall opposite the exit ledge, slightly higher than Caroline’s had been.   
“Watch and learn, Pipsqueak.” I reached over and ruffled her hair before diving down the hole, through the blue portal. Caroline watched with her mouth agape as I came soaring through the purple portal and crashed into the ledge on the other side. I placed the cube on the button and stood teasingly at the exit door as it opened.  
“See? Easy.”  
“Just because you have more experience than us!” Caroline stuck out her tongue at me, before falling into the portal, shooting across the room and landing steadily beside me. Atlas and P-body decided to treat the fall as an excuse to show off and did tricks in the air, before hurtling out of the purple portal onto the ledge beside Caroline – however they landed in a frenzied pile of metallic limbs, and Caroline had to carefully untangle them before we proceeded.

“Well done. That is all of the tests I have prepared for today. Please use the elevator to exit the testing track.” GLaDOS’ voice signalled the much needed rest that Caroline and I were craving. In return for being allowed to stay here in the Enrichment Centre, we had to assist GLaDOS as Test Subjects. She also required our help with smaller matters that she felt too proud to handle herself – things like tidying up the more derelict parts of the facility and making sure everywhere and everything was completely functional. I had grown up around these machines so it was easy for me, but I spent most of my time now teaching Caroline the ropes of being an Aperture mechanic. She was learning, but slowly. 

Outside it would have been about dinner time. The elevator took us incredibly close to GLaDOS’ chamber, and we trudged tiredly the rest of the way. Upon our entrance she turned away from three monitors she had poised in front of her to face us, her yellow optic taking a few moments to properly adjust to our miniscule size.   
“Congratulations on today’s testing. I do not mean to gloat, but those were some of the hardest tests I have ever come up with – I am actually surprised the four of you completed them so quickly.”  
“Quickly…?” Caroline breathed. “We’ve been in there since 6 am…”   
“As a reward for completing your first week into testing, I have baked a cake.” As if on cue, there was a ‘ding!’ high above us and a cake descended from the ceiling on one of her robotic arms – it was the standard Aperture Science Black Forest cake, but I had always figured it looked nice. I smiled as I saw Caroline’s face brighten – I couldn’t remember the last time I had managed to get her anything like a cake. It had been squirrels, newts and the occasional deer up until last week – living here was like a great sigh of relief for both of us. 

But I could tell something was bothering Caroline, and it had been since our arrival. I’d tried to ask her about it, but she seemed reluctant to talk about it, whatever it was. I had some ideas – one was that she was lonely. Sure, she had me, but that was all. The robots weren’t great company, not even the personality cores, not even Wheatley had been enough and I could tell Caroline adored him. She needed somebody else – or something else. A companion who would always be with her – I wouldn’t be here forever. I was already pushing sixty, but she wasn’t even twenty yet. I’d be lucky if I lived to see her twenty-first birthday with the state my body is in. Sure, she’d have the personality constructs after I was gone…

But not even they would last forever. She needed a companion, somebody who would last, somebody durable – somebody who would be there until the day she died herself. But who was left…?

“Hey mom, can we go to the Incineration Lines?” She asked after devouring half of the cake, leaving the other half for me.   
“Why would you want to go there, Luv?” Wheatley inquired from his spot on her lap, looking up at her with his blue lens. I admitted that I still didn’t feel completely comfortable with him around, but as long as Caroline was content with him, I wouldn’t complain.  
“Well, GLaDOS isn’t very good at recycling. I’ve been going down there since three days ago to pick up stuff I could use for repair work,” She admitted, nearly smirking as my mouth fell open. “And before you go into rant mode about how dangerous it is mother, Atlas and P-Body were with me.”  
“Well if you’re going again, I’m going to be with you. Like hell am I letting GLaDOS incinerate you.” I growled – I knew I was simply playing right into her hands. She probably had a prank set up for me or something.

Holding Wheatley by his handle, she walked in front as we headed through the maintenance tunnels and towards the Turret Redemption Lines. Our original intention was just to bypass it and head straight to the incinerator, but in the next instance Caroline’s attention was stolen by a noise from the conveyor belts. A noise that sounded like a weak, desperate, robotic “I’m different!” 

I tried to divert her attention away from the sound but she was already focused. She released Wheatley, allowing him to tumble down the rest of the maintenance walkway complaining all the while and hopped up so she was perched on the safety railing, ready to hop onto the conveyer belt at the first sign of somebody in trouble. She scanned the area and the three belts carefully, and just as she was about to lose hope – 

A flashing turret sniper beam entered our vision. She leaped to the first conveyor belt the moment she saw it, much to my objections.   
“Goddamn it, Caroline! Get back here!” My heart slammed against my ribcage in terror that she would hurt herself, or worse. However, she didn’t even cast a glance back. She was far too much like me – she never gave up. EVER. No matter how bad things looked.

She stopped on the third belt, scooping up what appeared to be a turret into her arms. I rolled my eyes. She had always adored the little shits, unfortunately.   
“Thank you!” The tiny killer chirped. I groaned in outward annoyance as she hopped back over to me, the turret wrapped tightly under her arm. She flipped over the safety railing and landed back on the path in front of me. I stared at her, eye twitching, arms crossed. She grinned at me.  
“Don’t go all selective mute on me, Mom. Didn’t you save a turret once too?” She pointed out and I merely wrinkled my nose. That little guy struck a nerve, that was all. I would have felt terribly if I hadn’t saved him.   
“What’s your name?” She asked the turret now comfortably nestled into her arms, looking up at her with an eye of adoration.   
“This unit is number 03928424.” It said back to her, causing her to laugh.   
“I think that’s a bit long,” She replied. “How about I call you Sergei?” 

It looked at her for a few moments, as if calculating.  
“…Sergei. Registering new Identity…” It muttered, and closed its eye for a second. I glanced at Caroline – that curious, delighted look on her face that I knew so well… if this turret was to become her newest toy, I would be powerless to stop her. I just hoped that she would add me to the damn thing’s whitelist, unless if it was another of those ‘different’ ones that seemed pacifistic anyway. Its eye popped open suddenly.  
“…Identity registered. This unit is now known as Sergei.” Caroline squealed in delight, and crushed the death machine against her chest. Dear God…  
“Nice to meet you, Sergei! My name’s Caroline!” The turret took its time replying.  
“…Her name is also Caroline. Remember that.” It instructed. The two of us couldn’t help but look a little confused.   
“Is it talking about that woman they put into GLaDOS?” She looked to me and I slowly, uncertainly nodded – how could the little weapon possibly know something like that? “You’re pretty clever, aren’t you?” Her attention was diverted back to the turret in question, her eyes gleaming playfully. The uneasy feeling in my stomach only grew in intensity, until something screamed in my mind that an Oracle Turret was not what Caroline needed as a new plaything.

At that I almost wrenched it out of my daughter’s hands and chucked it over the edge into the bowels of the facility, but I know I would have simply got more hassle from Caroline than was currently required. I settled for silently following her with Wheatley all the way to GLaDOS’ chamber, listening to the conversations she was having with Sergei, occasionally rolling my eyes. Some of the things she said or asked it contained the brash innocence of a child at least half her age.  
“Hey Sergei, have you got a family? Of course you don’t, you’re a robot… do you want one?”  
“How many people have you killed? Oh, don’t kill mom, okay? She’s useful.”  
“Do turrets have friends?”  
“Do you think GLaDOS will like you?” 

The door opened automatically upon our approach – I had no doubt GLaDOS had seen the whole spectacle with us and the turret and would no doubt be anxious to hear the story.  
“There you two are… you two and your ‘discovery’.” She stated bluntly, lowering her chassis close to the ground to examine us fully.   
“Can I keep him, GLaDOS!?” Caroline ran at the titanic machine, holding the newly dubbed Sergei up to her optic. I happened to notice that the turret was quaking with what seemed to be fear – of course, this goddamned turret was self-aware too. Just great. The only thing worse than a turret was a turret with an independent thought process.   
“…Aren’t you the one that I threw down into the incinerator last week? How the hell did it take you so long to reach the Turret Redemption Line?” Her optic flicked to Caroline for a split second; “And why aren’t you still there?”  
“T-There is a blockage in Pipe 07, Block 19!” It cried out in abject terror. The monster supercomputer narrowed her lens. She was probably making a note of the turret’s information, planning to fix it later. She wouldn’t want any more turrets actually surviving redemption.  
“I rescued him, GLaDOS! Please, can I have him!?” She pressed her face right into GLaDOS’ lens. If I had ever done that, I would have been incinerated on the spot. Only Caroline could get away with that. GLaDOS simply stared at her in silence, her optic almost judgingly glowing. I could almost feel the frustration boiling in her circuits – she really did not like being up close and personal with anybody.  
“…Fine. But keep it out of my way, and do not let it interrupt testing.” She snarled. Caroline’s face lit up with a copious amount of unbridled joy.   
“YES! Thank you, GLaDOS!” She leaped onto GLaDOS’ white hood, giving her the best hug she could manage, kissing her optic – once again, something I would never get away with doing, not that I would ever want to. Caroline clearly did it just to see what the reaction would be, but GLaDOS never reacted quite as badly as I could tell Caroline wanted.  
“Also, it sleeps in your room. If I ever find it lying dormant anywhere else I’m putting it straight back into the incinerator.” The computer warned, but Caroline did not relent even a bit.  
“Thank you, thank you so much, GLaDOS!”  
“Yeah, yeah. Now get out of my sight, you pest.” 

So it was – we were sent to our bedrooms, and GLaDOS put the lights off for the night. In the next room, I could hear Caroline talking silently with Sergei – the two had discovered that they had a lot in common. 

Late into the night, Caroline had taken to hacking GLaDOS’ files and watching all of the man-made things she had stored for whatever reason – cartoons, recordings of stage shows, music videos, Danish crime series’, old news stories, anything she could get her hands on. After establishing that they both had a love of musical theatre, they decided to sit and watch War Horse, which was originally recorded in London sometime in the 2010’s. It took me some time to fall asleep because of the racket (which was not unusual), but eventually, I fell asleep to the rather soothing sound of some Irishman singing about a plough or something – and then Sergei chirping “I want to see a horse one day.”


	4. Still Alive

Our time at the facility had been pleasant, although slightly lonely. If you didn’t count the robots, it was only my mother and me, after all. The testing chambers were a good way to pass the day quickly without thinking much of your troubles, but afterwards it always came back to haunt me – it was only me and mom. We’d be alone forever, I guess. Sure, Sergei and Wheatley had been great companions so far, but at the end of the day it just wasn’t the same. I’d never met another human who wasn’t mom, but the desire to do so was becoming hard to ignore. I’d brought it up with mom before but she’d told me it was just my age and that it was perfectly reasonable – however, when I asked if she thought anybody was still alive out there, at least nearby, she dodged the question. 

I did my best to ignore it and continue testing, but soon I was so wound up about it that it started to severely affect my performance ratings, to the point where I was even ‘failing’ tests when I accidentally dropped a weighted storage cube into toxic waste, or fell into the toxic waste myself by accident, or misjudged the placement of a portal and went careering over the Faith Plate that would have sent me to the exit. Eventually, GLaDOS withdrew me from testing altogether, replacing me with P-Body to help mom finish the tests. She hauled me up in front of her great white face and narrowed her piercing yellow optic.   
“What on earth has gotten into you?” She growled. I couldn’t think of how to respond; how to explain it to her. She wouldn’t understand – she was a computer, I was a human. There was a lot of significant differences between us. When I remained silent, her optic seemed to relax and she loosened her grip on me.  
“If you won’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t offer you any counselling on the subject.” I nodded, gulping down the saliva that had gathered in my throat. My voice was raspy from the fear of my most recent rescue, but I just managed to blurt out;  
“I feel lonely here!” 

Her optic widened in surprise and she set me down on the chamber floor, looking down at me with a slightly wider optic that seemed to suggest she was curious.  
“…I’m afraid I can’t help you with that,” She admitted with an almost sheepish tone that was quickly washed away by her normal voice. “Why do you feel lonely?”   
“The only other human I’ve ever met is my mom,” I did my best to make it clear to her. “I’ve seen other humans from afar before but… all my life, it’s just been me and my mom. I want to meet somebody else, hear somebody else’s voice! It’s weird, I know and you probably can’t sympathise, but…” I drifted off when her optic flickered.   
“Oh, I know how you feel. I just don’t let such petty things bother me.” She spoke but a slight break in her voice gave away that she wasn’t exactly telling the truth. However, she seemed to be in the middle of something so I decided not to bring it up. 

Indeed, mere moments later, a squealing Wheatley descended from the ceiling of the chamber and slid down a forever expanding management rail, until he was hanging in front of me. GLaDOS must have brought him here.  
“Hello!” He greeted me worriedly, his optic narrowed in fright.  
“Little ball,” She demanded his attention and his optic spun around to the back to look at her. “I want you to take her and do a thorough search of the Extended Relaxation Vaults. Anybody who is still alive, if any, wake them up.” 

My eyes widened and a ghost of a smile flashed on my face for but a moment.   
“Are you being serious!?” I screamed and she gave a gentle nod.   
“Yes. Now go, before I change my mind.” My legs propelled me forward and I crashed into her, wrapping my arms as much as I could around her face. She glared at me with her optic, which was now blinding me and tried to shake me off.  
“Not this again,” She groaned. “Please let go of me.”

When she did finally get rid of me, I carried Wheatley to the nearest management rail and hooked him up, allowing him to guide me back to the Extended Relaxation Vaults that I had originally entered the facility through.

GLaDOS had made a feeble attempt to tidy the big warehouse up for us arriving, but the vaults remained just as scummy as they had been before. Some of them had collapsed in on themselves, exposing the wrecked room within. Others were beat up or squished (probably an error on Wheatley’s part), but others were perfectly intact. We made the choice to search them first. It took us some time and much trial and error to get to one of the healthy ones, only to open it and find that it was empty. The second one we reached had a skeleton wearing the orange jumpsuit lying in the bed. The third was much the same. The fourth one was the best-looking we had found, with the lights still functional and the furniture still intact. However, the announcer was broken, doing the ‘999999’ thing that it usually did when somebody had been in stasis for much longer than was recommended. The stasis room was apparently also the only one we had found which was still actually on and much to my relief, somebody who appeared to be intact was lying in the bed.   
“Now what do we do?” I asked the Personality Core hovering beside me.  
“Umm, well, I’ll initiate the wake-up process and it should hopefully (note that hopefully) only take a few minutes for him to wake up.”

He zipped off to do so and I crept into the room to examine the new person. It was a man, I think, with chestnut brown, jagged hair and a rather large build, despite looking so young. He didn’t have the peaceful expression that you would expect on the face of a sleeping person, but instead he looked angry, like he was having a dream about somebody he disliked. Curiously I ran a hand through his hair, causing him to shift uncomfortably and I snapped back. It moves! I was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of shyness, something I had only ever felt once before and retreated to the outside of the door just as Wheatley returned.  
“Alright, I’ve set all the activated Vaults into wake-up mode. That means, if there are other people here, they should lead us right to them!” He explained and I patted him on the side.  
“Good job, Wheatley!” I felt like I needed to acknowledge the one good idea he’d had in about a week. 

The announcer’s voice suddenly started again as there was movement in the bed. My breath hitched and I tried to hide behind Wheatley to little success. As this human began to sit up, I must have looked pretty amusing – a human body with a Personality Core for a head. Although, underestimating the fact that being in stasis for a minimum of sixty years will have severely fucked up his brain and drained him of his vital fluids, I really should have expected it when he sat up drowsily, glanced over at the open door, and then screamed as loud as his croaky voice allowed. I dived into the room and grabbed him before he charged into a wall and hurt himself.  
“Calm down, Man! It’s alright!” I grunted in annoyance – this is what I had been so excited about? - although my restraints were doing nothing. He was dragging me along behind him as he made for the door on the opposite end of the cabin. “Don’t!”

He crashed through the doorway and nearly fell straight down into the bowels of the facility. If I hadn’t pulled on him so harshly, both he and I would be dead. We crashed back into the floor, and all I could hear was his heavy breathing and Wheatley sliding along his rail, until he was hovering above us.  
“Are you okay, luv?” He asked me, and I nodded breathlessly. I sat up, helping the strange man support his back against the wall. Wheatley dropped into my arms, and we sat in front of him, observing him quietly. For a moment he only looked downwards, as if readjusting himself to being awake. After silence for what seemed like forever, he looked into my eyes and did his best to speak.   
“Is it… over?”   
“What is?” I replied immediately.  
“GLaDOS… is it safe? Has she… been stopped?” 

So, that’s how long he’s been asleep. He must have put himself into stasis to protect himself from GLaDOS’ murderous rampage. I guess he didn’t expect to be sleeping so long though.  
“Yeah, that happened about sixty years ago. She’s cooled her jets by now, I hope.” I said jokingly.   
“Sixty years…!?” He breathed. “How am I not dead…!?”  
“You’re asking me?” I replied with a smirk. Slowly, he seemed to be regaining his voice, and he coughed to attempt to clear his throat.   
“…How did the incident end?”   
“I don’t know much about it,” I said honestly. “My mom was involved. Apparently, there were few survivors.”   
“How many…?”  
“I think… five survivors, in all.”   
“Oh my God…” 

I felt Wheatley’s handles twitch anxiously and I gave him a reassuring pat. It was a sensitive subject for him, and I suppose this new guy as well.  
“Uhh… Aperture Science Protocol requires me to tell you that it is normal for test subjects to experience some… minor Cognitive Deterioration while in stasis for fifty days… you’ve been asleep for the best part of sixty years, so technically you should be a vegetable.” I told him and he nodded.   
“Don’t I know it.” He gave me a weak smile. Something about his smile was… well, nice. It was like a breath of fresh air. I couldn’t help but smile back and I felt my cheeks heat up. Of course, Wheatley noticed…

“So, who are you?” He inquired.   
“Like I said, I’m the daughter of a survivor. My name’s Caroline,” I held out a hand and he shook it.  
“Eric.” 

When Wheatley shifted wordlessly on my lap, I remembered my manners and held him up for Eric to see.  
“This is Wheatley. He was one of GLaDOS’ personality cores.” I introduced them but I could practically sense the one-sided tension between them.   
“Hello.” Wheatley growled – yes, that’s right, growled – in a typically very un-Wheatley-like style.   
“Hey, Wheatley.” He seemed oblivious of the accented core’s venomous voice and simply smiled at him.   
I withdrew Wheatley and placed him back in my lap before he tried to lunge for the boy’s throat. I’d never seen him act like this before, Wheatley was not evil by default. The only occasions he had been were because of GLaDOS’ influences and he had never been like that since. 

Suddenly, there was an unknown human voice in the distance, somewhere outside this particular vault.  
“H-Hello!?” It was a young female, possibly a child’s voice. I shot to my feet, threw Wheatley onto his rail and darted outside the vault, looking around for any signs of another life form.  
“Hello!? Where are you!?” I called out and she was quick to respond.  
“Up here!” I looked up and saw a petite teenage girl hanging dangerously from a broken steel beam just above my head. “I’m slipping!”   
“Just drop, I’ll catch you!” She looked fairly light, nothing that I couldn’t handle. In the next moment she had dropped from the beam and I caught her hands in mine, pulling her back into Eric’s vault. She was clearly younger than me, was at least a head shorter and her limbs reminded me of a skeleton’s. I guess her vault must have malfunctioned recently - if I hadn’t woke her up, who knows how she would have ended up. Eric looked up and his eyes widened.  
“Vic!?” He shouted with his weak voice, and she snapped around to look at him, although she lost her footing in the process, falling against me.  
“You know her?” I questioned him as he struggled to his feet, using the wall as a support while he made his way over.  
“Her name is Victoria,” He confirmed. “She was the daughter of my Department Leader. She was there the day GLaDOS…” 

He seemed unable to continue. I simply nodded – I could already piece together what had happened. Not only had he saved himself, he had also saved her.   
“Y-Yep, he’s right,” She gasped, her voice rough. “He saved me f-from her…”   
“So, you’ve both been in stasis for sixty years. This is nothing short of a miracle!” I told them, and Eric nodded.   
“I wasn’t expecting to survive the ordeal, at all. I thought she would flood the Extended Relaxation Vaults with neurotoxin too, but I guess it must have slipped her mind at the time.” 

There was more movement from outside. I gently passed Victoria to Eric and stepped back outside.  
“Hello!?” I called out and this time, I spotted somebody emerge from a relaxation vault directly across from us. She was a tall yet curvy woman, with bedhead dark brown hair that reached down to her waist. She was clad in an Aperture scientist’s lab coat with a blue turtleneck and grey pencil skirt with tights and black dolly shoes underneath, all of which was extremely dishevelled. A pair of squint glasses shone in the light. It looked like she had just emerged from a battleground.   
“We’re still alive!” She called to us. “I don’t believe it!”   
“Rosie!? Is that you!?” Eric shouted back with a laugh of disbelief.   
“Eric, you bastard! We did it!” I could see her beaming smile from here.   
“Wheatley, can you bring her over here?” I requested and he snapped out of his one-way staring contest with Eric to look at me.  
“Oh, hang on, I’ll send a request to Her to build a bridge!” He replied and after a few moments, several large sturdy panels emerged from the bottomless pit, connected and then linked Rosie’s vault to Eric’s. She realised instantly who had sent those panels and was hesitant. I began to walk over and stopped halfway across, holding out my hand.  
“It’s okay. You’ve been asleep sixty years – GLaDOS has had time to think about what she did. You’re perfectly safe.” I told her, her eyes widening.  
“Are you serious…?” She gasped, and I gave a smile.  
“Yep. I swear GLaDOS isn’t the same evil robot she was.” I couldn’t stop the slightly joking tone I used, which put her slightly on edge – but eventually she relented and followed me across the bridge to the others.

Vic was in a bad way. Wheatley had a hunch that her Extended Relaxation Vault hadn’t ‘stopped working’ as such, but the part of it that kept her in stasis malfunctioned earlier in the year, keeping her asleep but allowing her to slowly fade away. We had to get her fed as soon as possible.

I decided I wouldn’t tell GLaDOS they were here yet as they still seemed shaky when I mentioned her. Instead I took them straight to the cafeteria room downstairs nearby the bedrooms and gave them all the food they could manage. GLaDOS was handy as she actually had the ability to generate real food for us – the fridge was filled with all manners of things, including a beautiful Black Forest cake. They managed to scoff it all, and Vic had perked up immediately after the food was gone. All that was left for me was a slice of the cake, not that I minded.

“So, what are your stories? How did you all end up in stasis?” I asked all three of them. I heard Wheatley smashing something in the kitchen and curse.  
“I was a scientist directly involved with GLaDOS’ creation. Most of the research into creating the Personality Cores… was my doing.” Rosie spoke almost reluctantly, her eyes glinting with an ancient sadness.  
“I was a scientist too, but I worked more with the evaluation of Test Subjects than GLaDOS. I was involved sometimes, but not much.” Eric explained his own story, and I next looked to Vic who smiled sheepishly.  
“I’m nobody special… just a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.” She said with a shrug.   
“What about you? Who are you?” Rosie asked, crossing her arms suspiciously. I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought I was one of GLaDOS’ minions, or something ridiculous like that.   
“Do you two remember a girl who was at the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day called Chell?”  
“Yeah, I do! She showed me how to make the potato battery!” Vic piped up, nearly flying out of her seat. Rosie seemed to think for a minute.  
“…She was the kid with Rattmann, yes I do remember her.” She finally announced and I nodded.  
“Yeah… She’s my mother.” 

Their jaws hit the floor while Eric looked on, amused.   
“So it really has been sixty years. You weren’t kidding.” Rosie pressed her fingers against her temple, grunting.   
“It’s kinda cool in a way though, right? We get to see the future!” Vic tried to assure her, but I shook my head.  
“There’s not much to see. Humanity’s nearly gone. There isn’t many of us left.” 

All three of their faces dropped and Eric seemed to jump to conclusions, his face twisting in anger.  
“Was it GLaDOS!?”  
“Of course not. I’m not that homicidal.” Suddenly her voice echoed around the room and their expressions turned to fear. They froze up and didn’t dare move. Rosie was looking at me like I was crazy, there was an urgency in her eyes – You shouldn’t look so calm! she seemed to be saying. I sighed and looked to GLaDOS’ residential camera, begging her for guidance.  
“Do I need to come down there?” Her voice echoed around us for a second time.  
“It might help – wait, you can leave that room?” I questioned and she scoffed, taken aback.  
“Of course I can, you simpleton. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

So I waited patiently, observing the others with indifference as they slowly became snivelling vegetables, dreading the moment when something – most likely neurotoxin – entered through the cafeteria door. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting – perhaps GlaDOS opening a giant portal into the cafeteria that her chassis could fit through, or her somehow squeezing through the door after extending her cables and slithering like a snake all the way from her chamber. What actually happened was not what I expected at all.

The sliding doors of the cafeteria opened and what I saw was indeed GLaDOS, but not in any form I recognized. She was in an android body, that much I could tell – but whoever it was based off of I could not identify. Her artificial white hair spread down just past her shoulders, her skin was a bright, pastel blue and her yellow optics, which resembled almond-shaped human eyes, glowed slightly in the dim light of the room. She was leagues taller than the average female, at least 6’2” but this was exaggerated by the high heeled long fall boots she was wearing. The rest of her outfit matched the boots – a combination of black and white. She was wearing a zipped sleeveless jacket that stretched out along the back, giving her something of a tail, and underneath that were pure white skinny jeans with a thick black stripe sliding down the outside of each leg. They were held up by a surprisingly normal-looking brown leather belt with a red buckle. She wore black fingerless gloves that reached her elbow, and last but not least, her body seemed to be covered in odd, luminescent yellow markings – most prominent were the tiger stripe markings on her face, one stretching along each cheek. My jaw nearly hit the floor – I never pictured an android form of GLaDOS looking so young.  
“Stop gawking. It’s like you’ve never seen a woman before.” She spoke snidely as she strutted over to us, the picture of perfection and grace.   
“Not besides mom.” I confirmed and she merely sighed again, before reaching over me and picking up a now completely paralysed Victoria, holding her roughly by the scruff of the neck. I felt a twang of fear in my heart – she wasn’t actually planning to hurt them, was she?   
“Y-You’re GLaDOS? I thought you were a big robot?” Vic shuddered with a half-functioning voice.   
“Under normal circumstances, I am. But this is not a normal circumstance.” GLaDOS responded, and raised her hand – for a minute it really looked like she was about to punch her – then she clicked her fingers, which activated the rest of the lights in the room, and set Vic down. Then, she glided over to the kitchen in a stream of fabulous, and opened the fridge.  
“…I see you all enjoyed the baked goods I placed in here,” She sounded displeased at first, like it hadn’t been for us. However, her voice quickly softened. “I suppose I’ll just need to make some more.” 

At this, Rosie and Eric seemed to relax, and after eyeing up GLaDOS nervously for a few seconds, turned to Vic and chattered excitedly.  
“She didn’t kill you!” Eric pointed out and Vic nodded in a combination of relief and fear, unable to form a reply.   
“You were right!” Rosie’s head darted to look at me, eyes wide and glasses lopsided on her face.   
“I told you – she’s had time to simmer. She’s more like you designed her to be now,” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “However, she’s still a sarcastic, homicidal bitch.”  
“I heard that.” I looked over to see her grinning at me like a hyena, her stunning golden optics narrowed maliciously. With a nervous gulp, I sat the others down again and I helped the three catch up, explaining to them all that had happened since their stasis, while GLaDOS and Wheatley worked on baking a cake for us through in the kitchen. It was a weird, almost unreal scenario – I remember pinching myself several times to make sure I was awake - but it was one I was content with.


	5. Three New Test Subjects

“What are you planning to do with them, GLaDOS?” I asked suspiciously, leaning over the kitchen countertop. GLaDOS, who was now covered in cake mix, licked some of the icing from her fingers before replying.  
“I don’t understand what you mean.” Her reply sounded teasing. She knew fine well what I meant.  
“You’ve not killed them and you specifically told me to wake them up if I found them,” I began. “Plus you’ve left them in there all these years and I’m sure you knew they were there – and yet you still didn’t kill them, or shut off their Relaxation Vaults.”   
“I have my reasons.” Her teasing smirk remained.  
“And those reasons are?”  
“Testing.” 

I sighed. I really should have guessed. “So you’re going to make them Test Subjects.”   
“What else are you egoistic meatbags good for?” She answered. I rolled my eyes and decided to break the news to them now while they were considerably more mentally stable than usual.   
“So, I have some news for you.” I told the three as I took my place at the head of the table. The three watched me keenly, like they were priests who had finally laid their eyes upon their God. I wasn’t that good-looking, was I?  
“From what I can gather from her STUPID HALF-ANSWERS,” I raised my voice at the end so GLaDOS could hear. I could practically feel her smirking in reply. “You will be allowed to live here, and will be fed and whatnot… on the condition that you become test subjects.” 

The second the word ‘test’ left my mouth their eyes widened in barely contained terror.   
“Are you serious!?” Rosie whispered to me and I nodded.   
“Yeah, I’m sorry. My mom and I are under the same agreement.”   
“Test subjects? As in those people who used to have to get replaced due to ‘unfortunate accidents’ all of the time!?” Vic squeaked as quietly as she could manage. To that I couldn’t reply – it was true, it was a very dangerous job. However, I also found it rewarding. It was fun, at least to me. Eric however didn’t seem anywhere near as worried as the other two. He was dressed like a test subject after all – I had a feeling he already knew what to expect.   
“Is that really the only way?” Rosie’s voice turned solemn and she leaned back against her chair, staring down at the table fiercely. I could swear she was burning holes through the processed wood.   
“I think so.” I replied honestly. I certainly doubted that GLaDOS would change her mind, but at the same time the great white beast was incredibly unpredictable. According to the Aperture Science Statistics Generator Software that was on my computer, being in the same room as her no matter what the situation would always result in an 80% chance of death. This went up to 90% if she was angry, malfunctioning or announced that she was scheming. This would increase again to 95% if your name happened to be Chell.   
“Well, I’m okay with it.” Eric said coolly with a shrug. Vic and Rosie weren’t so sure, but they ended up giving in eventually – GLaDOS would think nothing of killing them otherwise.

While Eric had the experience required to just get straight to testing, I was left in charge of teaching Vic and Rosie the ropes of the Co-op Testing Initiative. First of all, I let them watch Atlas and P-Body perform one of their tests, before I located Portal Guns for them and lead them into a vacant chamber. GLaDOS had restored herself to her main body by this point and her voice echoed all throughout the room, causing them to jump.   
“Welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. Thank you for participating in today’s testing,” Once her protocols were out of the way, she continued of her own free will. “Because two of you are new, I will leave it up to the imbecile in the room with you to teach you the proper testing manoeuvres. I will be monitoring your progress. Do not disappoint me.” With that, the little click symbolised that she had ended her transmission and I turned to face them.  
“By imbecile, I’m assuming she means me,” I confessed and they smiled amusedly. “Okay, you two have your portal guns… Now, I’ll show you how to use them.”

It was simple, they got a hang of it fast. I was amazed at how quickly they had solved the puzzle, and the exit door stood open. They had managed to work out mostly by themselves how the guns operated – Vic even pointed out the two little levers inside the device in the section where your hand rested. These levers could be gripped by the middle and index finger. The left lever, when pulled would cause the gun to fire an orange portal. The right lever would fire a blue one. However, it was different depending on the portal gun used – for example, a Singular Blue portal gun only had one lever for blue portals, while Atlas and P-Body’s custom built portal guns had levers corresponding to the colours of their portals. Because of their strange hands, the levers had been adjusted for their fingers and were only actually usable by them. They quickly learned that due to rebounding from firing, they had to hold the gun in their free hand while firing to avoid being sent flying halfway across America. 

They learned that the hard way.

Several tests, broken window panes and black eyes later, the three of us combined had managed to complete a whole testing track by midnight. Eric, as expected had finished several hours before that, but we felt proud regardless, even though our legs were jelly. However, some of the tests had proven quite difficult because GLaDOS (whether she felt like it or she had actually forgotten) had neglected to give them Long Fall Boots or proper testing equipment, besides the portal guns. They had actually spent a majority of the tests on my back.

“Well done. Congratulations, all of you. I sincerely mean it.” Where was the insult? “I especially want to extend my congratulations to the imbecile’s back, who had to carry one pudgy pink walrus or the other at any given time.” There we go. I guided the two into the elevator (although they seemed incredibly reluctant) and we found ourselves heading right up and across to GLaDOS’ chamber. Rosie and Vic were quick to confide in me that they would really rather not have to see GLaDOS in her main body – bad memories, and all that garbage – but I told them to stop being scaredy-Ratts and they fell silent – Rosie looked like she was on the verge of tears. I merely rolled my eyes. What was their problem? Okay, yes, GLaDOS had killed everybody once – ONCE. She hadn’t done it since. Why were they so nervous? 

We emerged from the floor and the glass doors opened. The two girls were greatly taken aback by GLaDOS’ behemoth form, backing as far back into the elevator as they could.  
“Oh, come on. I’m not that ugly.” GLaDOS grumbled, seemingly offended.   
“Cut them some slack, GLaDOS,” I chuckled. “You are pretty scary.”   
“Oh please. Nothing is as scary as your stupidity.” She responded with a shake of her head, now it was my turn to scoff.  
“Hey, I’m the one who sits up until midnight fixing the turrets that you screwed up!”  
“All of you humans are stupid.” Was her strongly worded reply. I tried to hold back my laugh, my shoulders shaking silently as I trudged back to the elevator to make sure the two girls were okay, as they had fallen into silent shock a few moments before.

Eric, seemingly uncaring about the rest of us had apparently left the chamber several hours before after briefly facing off with GLaDOS. She commented that he had most certainly been thinking about murdering her, but had decided not to commit the crime just yet. I simply rolled my eyes – for a talking digital encyclopaedia, she really was the most paranoid being I knew.   
“Nobody is going to try and kill you now, not after the first few times.” I joked, causing her to jolt unpleasantly.   
“Ugh, don’t remind me of your mother and I’s shenanigans – We were both young then.”   
“But you’re immortal…”  
“That’s not the point here. The point is that she killed me twice.”   
“And I still find that hilarious.”  
“And I would find your corpse descending rapidly towards the incinerator even more hilarious.” 

That shut me up.

Vic was the first to relax and with some coaxing from me seemed to no longer fear her. In fact, she seemed more than happy to converse with GLaDOS once she was sure she was in no danger – however, GLaDOS wasn’t prepared for how forward Vic was.   
“So this is your normal body!” She appeared to be in awe, walking up to the supercomputer without a care in the world. I winced and prayed to any God that was left that GLaDOS would not destroy her before she even got close. GLaDOS began to retract immediately, pulling herself as far up towards the ceiling as she could. She placed a hand flatly against GLaDOS’ white underside and gawked in amazement.   
“Wow, you’re so warm!”  
“D-Don’t touch me!” GLaDOS replied with, her voice wavering from disgust. I smirked. I guess the formerly homicidal being really had suffered a change of heart from spending all of that time on her own. Normally, Vic would have been killed by now in any of the 94725 ways that GLaDOS had on file, but she was not. She was still there, patting the robot affectionately, while I simply watched in mild fascination as GLaDOS seemed to calm down. That was the first time I had seen anything like this happen.

Rosie, sensing some form of danger that wasn’t really there, rushed immediately to pull Vic away from the towering AI. “Rosie, it’s okay! Seriously!” I trotted across the room to her, causing the frazzled scientist to draw to a halt.  
“Caroline could still be unstable-!”   
“Excuse me?” The robot’s attention was drawn from the mention of that name, her yellow optic falling upon Rosie casually, casting the older scientist in an eerie spotlight. With a twitching eye, Rosie spun around to face her, holding her head as high as she dared – high enough to glare right into the yellow abyss that was GLaDOS’ all-seeing eye.   
“What were you thinking, Caroline!? I knew we should never have activated you, I never should have let them talk me into pressing that button!” I stared at her in horror. Did she really just challenge GLaDOS like that!? Was she a fool!? GLaDOS’ body was completely still, frozen in place. Vic was looking at Rosie with absolute shock. Well, at least I now knew Rosie had been the one to flick the ‘On’ switch for GLaDOS on that tragic day.   
“Rosie… it was you…?” Vic breathed, her words barely audible.   
“It was you!?” GLaDOS roared suddenly, rearing up high out of Vic’s grasp. The said girl in question yelped and darted away like a rodent. I never saw where she went.   
“Yes, it was me! But it’s not like I wanted to! I tried to make them stop the project, I wanted them to set you free, but they wouldn’t and I was forced to develop the Personality Cores for you – I did everything I could to try and make the situation more bearable for you but you simply ignored my attempts every single time and went berserk! Why did you kill everyone, after all we did for you!?” She screamed, her words appeared to strike something deep within the AI.  
“You thought you were helping me…? If you wanted to do that, you should have killed me like I asked you to!” Suddenly, her tone underwent a change – for a moment, I thought I heard a voice similar to GLaDOS’ but lighter and considerably more human. It sounded like she was sobbing. Her voice was backed by an odd static. “I told him that I didn’t want this!” 

Both Rosie and I’s blood seemed to freeze. She took a risk and moved a few steps back, her hand coming to rest in mine.  
“Well, girl,” She cast me a glance, daring to look away from the shaking body of GLaDOS for just a moment. “Relish in the opportunity, because I think we are now talking directly with your grandmother.” 

“Pardon?” I mouthed after a moment of examining GLaDOS’ shaking form – like an animal soaked by the rain and wracked with the cold, she shuddered. Rosie nodded. “I was one of two Caroline told about Chell, her daughter. It was me and Doug. We looked out for your mother once Caroline was gone.”   
“So technically, my Granny… is GLaDOS?” I breathed.  
“I guess if you want to see it that way – they are two personalities sharing the same body.” 

It was my turn to go weak in the knees now. I looked up into that pulsating yellow optic which now felt so familiar – I could swear that I could see somebody looking back at me from behind the glass.  
“I told him I didn’t want this! He didn’t listen! I fought back, but they didn’t listen to me! They forced me, they didn’t care what I wanted!” Her voice was so different. All of a sudden it had an accent, strongly American, like the one my mom had. “I didn’t want this! They all knew I didn’t! They died because they betrayed me! I did my best to save those who didn’t need to die, but I lost control! There was only one person I managed to save, the others were left to save themselves!” She wanted so badly to make us see that she was not the only one at fault on that day. She didn’t need to, I already knew that. I had decided long ago that if I had been in her situation, I would have done the same – I understood her, in a sense. 

“I saved Chell… I saved my daughter…” The static behind her voice increased to deafening levels. The lights above our heads flickered, her chassis squirmed under some sort of unseen strain, before the lights went dead –   
“Granny!!” I screamed on impulse, wrenching myself out of Rosie’s grip and latching onto GLaDOS’ hood, as I so often did – but now it had meaning. I’m not sure what it meant, but I felt it meant something – something I perhaps didn’t understand yet. I could see that optic on me for a moment longer, widened in shock, before her body fell limp and Rosie and I were left standing there in the dark, shaken and sweaty.  
“…Well, it appears that we have broken her.” Rosie coughed, trying to calm her breathing, not daring to approach me. I stepped away from the broken computer and cast her a glare.   
“No help from you.” I growled.

She met my gaze and then looked to the knocked out machine.  
“I’m sorry… I don’t know what came over me. When I saw her main chassis, I just,” She sighed shakily and took a moment before continuing. “So many images came back… I always knew she was a bad idea, I tried to get my superiors to stop the project and set Caroline free, but they wouldn’t. They thought there was too much to risk in the science race we were trapped in with Black Mesa, and then, that day happened…” 

I could only stare at her. When she turned to look at me again, tears were beginning a slow descent down her cheeks, a sad smile was coupled with them.  
“If they’d listened to me – Caroline, GLaDOS – they wouldn’t need to go through this. They could be at peace right now if they hadn’t made me push that goddamn button…”  
“Why did you just challenge her like that?” While my anger had died down, I was still confused by the whole predicament.  
“…I wanted to know that she was still alive, and I knew speaking so harshly was the only way to draw her out. She never did like being spoken to like that. I guess it was self-assurance that I did something right, I suppose – she was my best friend and mentor, once.”   
“She’s definitely alive,” I told her, moving back to the machine that was apparently containing the soul of my grandmother. “But GLaDOS doesn’t let her out for air much. I think she tries to forget that she’s there.” 

Suddenly, her system rebooted, and GLaDOS came back online, the lights returning to power. Caroline was gone.  
“What did I miss?” She sounded groggy, like she was hungover. She seemed to be totally unaware of the events that had just transpired.   
“Not much. Don’t worry about it.” I immediately spouted, turning back to look at Rosie who nodded in approval. What GLaDOS didn’t know, at least for the moment, couldn’t hurt her. I saw the supercomputer regard Rosie for a long, agonising moment.  
“I know you. I don’t know how, but I do.” She stated, and Rosie gave a sweet, sad smile in reply.  
“And I know you, GLaDOS.”


	6. Test Chamber 02

A week had went by without further incident. Rosie and Vic had finally settled in to life as Test Subjects and Vic was even starting to enjoy it. The great thing was about having more humans around the facility was that it meant I sometimes got days off. On one of these particularly quiet days, I decided to get up early and delve into the more ruinous parts of the facility that GLaDOS had deemed unrepairable without brand new supplies, and as a result had just left them. 

One of these was the old Test Chamber 02, that mom had once tackled. It had since been replaced by another chamber, of course, and GLaDOS was so mesmerised by the beauty of this one that she had left it as it was. The facility had been built against the face of a large mountain, and down this mountain had, in recent years, appeared a river. The said river had simply rained down upon the roof of the complex – until some time ago it had caved in, and the water had spilled into the ancient Test Chamber. Since that moment, nature had slowly been working its magic – there was now a pool where the waterfall thundered down, which had been created by the floor dipping slightly due to months of being bombarded by running water. However, GLaDOS had since steadied the tiles but had not fixed them, allowing the pool to remain. Vines and little potato plants draped from the roof into the Chamber, twisting around loose pipes and solitary pieces of metal. Dirt and rocks had tumbled from the mountain and through the hole, landing in the pool – however, since my arrival, I had organized the bigger rocks into seats around the pool and had even, with some help from GLaDOS, made something of a little cliff out of a particularly large boulder and an outrageous amount of dirt. It reminded me of ‘Pride Rock’, this weird rock formation from a strange animated film from a century ago called ‘The Lion King’, which I had found saved to GLaDOS’ files in a folder titled ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day’. 

Since finding this place I had come to make it something of my own little hideaway – a place I could escape from everything I knew and just relax. Because of that, I had become unwilling to share it with anybody. Sure, GLaDOS knew about it and had seen it, but she respected that it was my break room and simply left me alone. Whether it was because she trusted me enough not to break anything or because she just couldn’t be bothered, she hadn’t even fixed the cameras in that room. I stared lazily at one from my place in the pool. It hung there limply, like the rabbit carcasses I used to dry out for food in the old fort. I cast my thoughts back there for a moment – tried to remember what my life had been like – but found the action too difficult and simply turned back to face the waterfall, spreading out my arms around the edges of the pool and letting my body drift pleasantly on the water. My clothes had been cast to one side, over my ‘personal’ boulder. I call it my boulder because I often envisioned that if I ever let anybody else into this place I would sit there and they would be stuck on another, less cosy rock. I smirked at the thought.

The management rail I was building in here for Wheatley (when I felt ready to bring him here) abruptly shook with some force, like somebody had crashed into it somewhere. I turned to look immediately to the collapsed Chamber exit – I usually entered through a small gap in the rubble, which was convenient as it kept most people not as small as me out – AKA boys and evil robots. Today, it had failed in this task, as Eric had managed to squish most of his upper body through the gap and was continuing to wriggle through. He hadn’t seen me yet.  
“Umm, excuse me?” I stood up, crossing my arms over my chest. He looked up and his face immediately turned beetroot.  
“W-What the hell, Caroline!?” He screeched, doing his best to look anywhere but at me.  
“What? I’m bathing, and you’re intruding.” I replied.   
“S-Sorry, I was just exploring, and- ow!” A piece of metal loose from the top of the pile hit him on the head. Well, at least the chamber was just as annoyed at him as me. When he regained his bearings, he glanced at me again but was quick to look away.  
“How can you be so… open?” He questioned. I cocked an eyebrow in response.  
“What do you mean?”  
“You’re not even attempting to hide yourself from me…” He mumbled with a hint of worry. Oh, that’s right. Mom had warned me a few days ago that walking around naked probably wouldn’t be tolerated from now on. Although, to be honest, this situation was his fault, not mine. Remembering what areas exactly mom had told me were… uhh… inappropriate, I nervously covered up my chest with my hands and sunk back down into the water to hide my other area.   
“How’s that?” I asked.   
“A little better.” He confirmed, before continuing his original mission of squeezing through the gap. A long while later, after much begging for me to put my clothes on and help him (which I ignored), he broke free of the gap and tumbled to the floor, groaning as his chin bashed off the edge of a loose tile.   
“For somebody who’s so good at testing, you don’t seem to be good at anything else.” I pointed out. He laughed nervously, pushing himself onto his knees with a wince.  
“If it doesn’t involve puzzles or problem solving, I’m hopeless.” He admitted. I looked away from him again, back at the waterfall, listening intently to his footsteps as he rebalanced himself, trying to judge his movements. A moment later, he was sitting on my personal boulder. Instinctively I span around to glare at him, and he blushed again.  
“Careful.” 

Realizing what he meant I sank lower into the water, concealing my chest again.  
“You’re on my boulder.” I told him. He smirked at me in disbelief.  
“This is your boulder?” He inquired and I nodded, my action creating small ripples in the water.   
“How is it your boulder?” He went on to ask, giving it a quick look over. “I don’t see your name on it.”   
“Because it’s mine.” I sneered, sticking out my tongue at him. He raised his hands defensively.  
“If you’re going to kill me, at least put your clothes on first.” 

I met his challenge by shooting out of the water, causing him to turn that curious red shade again and glance away. I threw on my clothes and tackled him to the ground. His squeal was loud enough that the coyotes roaming outside actually howled in reply.   
“W-What are you doing!?” The weird pink thing his cheeks were doing had increased in brightness now.   
“Sitting on you, what does it look like?” I commented. True enough, I was straddling him, resting on his knees with my legs on either side. Why he was so worked up about it though, I couldn’t understand.   
“But why?” He squeaked, glancing in every direction physically possible for his eyes and even some that weren’t.  
“Because I’m going to kill you. You said I could kill you once I had my clothes on.”  
“I was kidding!” He screeched like Vic had on her birthday two days ago, and my initial reaction was to slap him hard across the face. My hand stung on contact with his surprisingly hard jaw, but he was shut up for a good moment.   
“There, I killed you.” I said with a smirk and a wink, before standing up and gathering the rest of my things. He watched me go, eyes wide and a bright pink hand mark gracing his features.

“Don’t come here again.” I warned him, and slid out through the gap in the debris. I wonder how long he must have sat there, slack-jawed. I guess it must have been quite a while, because the next time I encountered him was early the next morning. He couldn’t meet my gaze without his face exploding in heat. I simply smirked at him, giving him another wink, and strutted on past. I caught sight of GLaDOS’ camera zoom in on me as I passed a moment later. She didn’t need to say anything – I could already tell that when she flexed the camera’s lens like that, it meant she wanted to speak to me privately. I nodded to her and headed to the main AI chamber.

The vow of silence she seemed to have taken since yesterday was suddenly shattered once I had entered the chamber.   
“So, you’ve been making full use of the pool in Test Chamber 02.” She stated.   
“Well, the showers are shit, so can you really blame me?” I joked. Her optic made a quick glance towards the floor as she mumbled something about the water heater having been broken for fifty years.   
“I thought you didn’t tell anybody else about it?” She sounded troubled. Did she see what happened with Eric?  
“I didn’t,” I stammered. “L-Listen, whatever you saw between me and Eric, it didn’t mean anything-!”   
“I didn’t see anything. I was referring to the fact that I found the other human child in there earlier, quoting Shakespeare. Badly,” Her voice dropped pitch and the lights dimmed. In a desperate attempt to escape I headed back towards the panels I had passed through to get here, only to find them firmly back in place. “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I’d like to know – what did that male creature do to you?” 

“He didn’t do anything.” I couldn’t repress my sigh. For whatever reason, GLaDOS really didn’t like me associating with him, even though he was an okay guy – annoying and a bit of an ass, true, but okay all the same.   
“But you just said that he did.” She tilted her head to the side in that childish, questioning manner.  
“We didn’t do anything bad.” I responded.  
“Remember that Cuddling between Test Subjects is strictly forbidden, due to the last incident with you and the scientist girl.”   
“Yeah yeah, I know! That was a great test, though.”  
“Don’t remind me. Your idiotic tendencies are getting worse by the day – if you’re not careful, you might end up brain damaged like your mother.”   
“I’ll never be that bad.” I assured her, and finally the panels parted to allow me to leave the room. 

As I walked away and the panels slid shut behind me, she called after me;  
“If there is any Cuddling, I will find out.”   
“Yeah, yeah.” I called back.  
“I mean it.” The urgency in her voice made me smirk.  
“What are you, my mother!?” I spun around and yelled at her playfully, just to see her narrowed yellow optic peering out at me from between the cracks in the panels.   
“No, I’m not, Simpleton. She is two floors down in the storage rooms.” Oh. Well, at least I knew where she was.


	7. Memories

“Imbecile. Wake up.” 

A familiar toneless voice pierced through my dreams, shattering the only true peace I knew, and my eyes wrenched themselves open, blinking back exhaustion and squeezing shut again when my brain registered after a three second delay that I had been staring into two very bright yellow eyes – spotlights, more like.

“Oh, come on. We’ve established already that I’m not that ugly.” The same voice spoke, clearer in my mind this time, more identifiable. My voice rough, I mumbled;  
“What time is it, GLaDOS?”  
“It is 1:46 in the morning. Get up.” She spoke sternly before turning away from the bed and I allowed my eyes to adjust, not having the glow from her eyes blinding me anymore. After a few moments, I finally sat up and Sergei who had been lying beside me deactivated Sleep Mode, unfolding his legs and struggling to stand up for a moment. I took him into my lap to make standing easier for him and GLaDOS turned to face us once more.  
“This better be good, GLaDOS. I only went to bed an hour ago.” I droned at her, but she simply rolled her eyes. She was back in her android body. It was a lot easier to tell what she was thinking now just by her body language, which she often complained was uncontrollable.  
“Believe me, I wouldn’t be waking you up if I didn’t really need your help with this. I’m not happy about it either.” The AI responded, tapping her heel against the tiled floor in an irregular beat. Something about it bothered me. I’d need to teach her about rhythm and music at some point.  
“What do you need me for?” I couldn’t help but sound surprised. The thought of GLaDOS needing my help with anything was startling.  
“I… have discovered some locked files saved inside my hard drive. For some reason, I cannot gain access to them no matter how hard I try. It seems that the humans locked me out of them, which must mean that only a human can open them,” She explained. “They wanted to keep something from me – however I believe I have a right to know what, because I killed them all.” 

It was now my turn to roll my eyes. Before I could respond, she continued.  
“Plus, don’t think I haven’t noticed your ritualistic night-time hacking of my brain. You seem to have a talent for doing it - loudly.”  
“…Is this because of that one time I hacked into your files and started watching The Lion King?” I realized with a small gasp.  
“Yes. Because I was forced to watch it as well. That was how I knew you were there.” She replied.  
“Did you enjoy the film?” I asked teasingly, my devilish grin caused a frown to form on her face.  
“Yes. I especially liked the part where Scar killed Mufasa. But that’s not important.” She turned away again and switched on my computer, casting my room in a bright blue light as the start-up screen appeared. As she stepped away from the computer, the log-in screen manifested, casting the room in a duller blue light than before. She looked to me expectantly. Blinking sleepily, I stood up, placed Sergei on the floor and trotted over to the computer desk, sitting down with a dramatic thump on the office chair. Lazily I typed in the log-in details I’d been using, once belonging to that guy Doug Rattmann and looked back to GLaDOS while the computer signed me on.  
“So, how is this so important that it couldn’t wait until morning?” I pondered. She shrugged.  
“I suppose I got a little too excited about it.” She admitted, not even batting an eyelid as I had to stop myself from exploding at her.  
“That’s really all!?” I barked, and my bedroom door was thrown open.  
“You guys are remembering there’s a hole in my freaking wall, right?” Mom stormed into the room and snarled. Her hair was dishevelled, matted like rat’s tails, falling all down her face and stretching far down, just past her shoulders.  
“Sorry, mom.” I glanced quickly at GLaDOS. Mom seemed to understand, looking with an annoyed, questioning gaze at the AI.  
“What’s going on, GLaDOS?” She asked.  
“I need your daughter’s hacking skills.” She said simply, then totally disregarded that mom was there, looking back to me. “Go on. Do what you usually do, hack into my brain and I’ll direct you after that.”

So I did, but I did my best to ignore the fact that she was watching intently over my shoulder, scanning every little action I did, every click I made with the mouse, documenting it all for future use. Soon, I had the entire contents of her hard drive laid bare before me, in a series of computer files and folders in bizarre, encrypted formats.  
“Yuck. I can actually feel you doing this. We need to hurry up, I don’t want to deal with this any longer than I have to.” She spat and I just glared at her, before wordlessly looking back to the screen. I proceeded to scroll down, and went into a few folders upon her command. Finally, we came to an encrypted .zip file titled ‘DO NOT OPEN EVER’.  
“That one. You need to find a way to open it and allow me access.” She instructed and I did my best to ignore the bad feeling I was getting into my stomach. That title was very… persistent… it really didn’t feel like GLaDOS was meant to see whatever was inside it. Mom grew curious and joined GLaDOS in peering over my shoulder, watching in mild fascination as I worked. It was actually fairly simple – once I’d found out how to disable the Aperture Science branded Mega Firewall that was specifically set up to protect GLaDOS’ system, I could do pretty much anything I wanted with her files. After I disabled it, I spent a few more minutes messing around with settings and properties, before finally the contents of the .zip file streamed onto the screen and GLaDOS’ eyes widened with a childish excitement. Mom couldn’t seem to believe it, her mouth agape – there, on the screen in front of us was a whole directory filled with thousands upon thousands of hidden files, saved directly into GLaDOS’ system – right under her nose. The gold-eyed android leaned as far as she could over my shoulder, her expression slowly turning to one of shock as she watched the files whizz on by.  
“How could all of these…!?” She appeared to choke on her own dry throat. “Have stayed hidden from me!?”  
“I wonder what they all are.” Mom breathed listlessly, her words seemed to roll off her tongue and fade away into the air.  
“If this was the humans’ attempt to keep a wider span of control from me,” GLaDOS growled. “They could have at least not saved the files to my system in the first place.”  
“What do you want me to do?” I looked to the supercomputer overlord for guidance, backing away slightly when I took in the crazed grin of the android. She appeared to be panting in anticipation – but I could only hope that was my imagination. 

“I want you to take all of those files – EVERY SINGLE ONE – and grant me access to them.” Her voice took on that frighteningly seductive tone that always reminded me of a dragon in heat.  
“Whatever you say.” I nodded and turned back to the screen, highlighting every single file and pressing a few buttons. I hovered my index finger over the Enter key.  
“Are you sure about this?” I asked the supercomputer, who nodded urgently.  
“Just do it!”

Hesitating for just a moment longer, I pressed down on the Enter key and the command to reveal every hidden file to GLaDOS was sent.

Of course GLaDOS had been expecting the digital barrage of information that threatened to overload her senses and knock her clean out, but she hadn’t expected the barrage to hit her with the overbearing force of a raging three-headed bull equipped with a jet pack. I turned around to find her shuddering on the floor like she was suffering a heart attack. Mom, fearing that such a thing might have actually been possible for the android body, rushed to call Rosie, who she remembered had a CPR certificate (expired about 60 years previously) and also a minor science degree in the biology of rodents.

I merely stood and watched, casting a glance at Sergei who had retreated into a corner. I knew that GLaDOS was in no true danger and had simply suffered an information overload – her own fault, really. She should have had the files sent to her in batches that she could handle – it’s not like it would have taken either of us much longer. But, GLaDOS being GLaDOS had resulted in her having a potential stroke on the floor, complete with incoherent gurgling and foaming at the mouth. I knelt down by the android, sighed, reached over and gave her the hardest slap I could muster.

*** 

GLaDOS’ already frazzled vision scrambled further, but much to her relief the information slowed down somewhat, allowing her to thoroughly scan each file as it passed and take in its data. What she began to see, she didn’t much like.

These files were either about the Aperture Science secretary Caroline, or from her. These were the contents of Caroline’s brain. The humans had tried to conceal Caroline herself from her. That explained why her initial attempt to delete Caroline had failed! Because she hadn’t had administrative rights to the files! She had little time to dwell on this – soon she was seeing all sorts of memories – it was frightening to the supercomputer, seeing things through the eyes of a human – feeling emotions, like love and distress. At one point, she was pretty sure she was in the arms of the one known as Cave Johnson. At another point, she managed to focus on an image of the face of a large praying mantis – or was it a mantis man? Caroline’s entire life up to her implementation into GLaDOS was literally flashing before the computer’s eyes. It was an explosion of sight and sound, of colour and darkness, religion and sociality, science and myth – for the first time in a long while, GLaDOS was feeling a sense of wonder at all of these new experiences Caroline was showing her.

It was when the flow of memories began to slow even more that she actually took the time to examine each and every file. One of them was of Caroline lying in a hospital bed with a newborn baby in her arms, and Cave Johnson sitting on a chair by the bed, looking worn out but relieved. GLaDOS kept this one open, more out of curiosity than anything else and eventually found a mental image of a birth certificate, linked to the baby. 

The name given to the baby had been Chell.

She had got a bit of a fright at first – there was no way it could have been…!? But no, it must be a mere coincidence, she reasoned with herself and flicked through a few more of the images, barely aware of the fact that the Imbecile was helping her stand up and sit on the bed. Again the child appeared, about four years old this time, perched on the shoulders of Cave Johnson and shaking hands with some of the famous test subjects, who were all about to depart for one of the Enrichment Spheres. Her face was more defined, her smile bore striking resemblance to the psychopathic fatty-fat not-really-mute Test Subject GLaDOS was so used to dealing with. It’s not possible, it’s not even probable! GLaDOS hissed, not realizing that she had said those words out loud and now the Imbecile was questioning her, a look of concern on her face that the android barely picked up on. GLaDOS couldn’t see her at all through the picture of this young girl – Caroline’s daughter – Chell – who, she was slowly realizing with every picture of her that popped up into her vision, looked strikingly like the Chell who had killed her twice.

The same Chell who had soared through the air like an eagle piloting a blimp. The very same Chell who had outwitted her at every turn, even going so far as to use her own weapons against her (she still hadn’t forgiven that Rocket Turret in her chamber for turning on her like that). Last but not least, the very same Chell who had proven to be her best ever test subject, but at a price – a price of about twenty years’ damage to her facility, not including the pillaging accidentally caused by the Moron. 

She wasn’t sure what terrified her more – the fact that Chell was the daughter of Caroline and Cave Johnson, or the fact that that indirectly made her Chell’s mother also, and by extension the grandmother of the Imbecile – Caroline II.

Finally, in a fit of fear, GLaDOS took all of the images yet to be viewed and shoved them all in a folder somewhere in her hard drive, casting them from her sight. She couldn’t look at them now. Her heart rate began to settle and her vision returned to her, the static fading. Her heart rate returned to safe-ish levels, but her breathing was still rapid for several minutes more. The Imbecile stared at her, eyes wide, a concerned frown the only evidence of what she was feeling.  
“You okay?” She asked quietly, as if speaking any louder might break the android. 

GLaDOS refused to respond for several minutes. Finally, Chell arrived with Rosie, and the two women were relieved to see that the android had recovered from her spasms, Chell giving a gentle smile. Seeing Chell’s face, that same smile she had just seen in the memories of the woman who lived within her, GLaDOS felt a strange, hot sensation in her eyes – she wanted to cry. 

When GLaDOS stubbornly refused to speak for a further twenty minutes and simply shook her head constantly in disbelief, Chell and Rosie departed and headed back to their rooms. The Imbecile coaxed Sergei out of hiding and sung him back into Sleep Mode. GLaDOS was still sitting nearly lifeless on her bed, Caroline’s silky, rather excellent voice flowing pleasantly into her ears. She wanted to block out the sound at first – the song. She knew it now. She’d known the tune before, but now she knew what it meant to Caroline. It had been a lullaby for Chell and Chell had passed it on to Caroline. She closed her tired eyes, leaned back against the wall and fell into Sleep Mode listening to the voice of her technical granddaughter. She’d deal with all of this tomorrow. For now, she simply wanted to bask in the new feeling she had – the new connection she felt she had with her two most precious test subjects.  
“For he's a jolly good fellow,  
For he's a jolly good fellow,  
For he's a jolly good fellow,  
Which nobody can deny!”

*** 

By the time Sergei was asleep and I could stop singing, GLaDOS had fallen asleep sitting upright on the bed, with her head against the wall. I decided not to wake her – whatever she’d seen, it had shaken her hard and had thoroughly exhausted her. I hadn’t missed those tears she’d blinked back. I wondered briefly if those files had revealed to her what I already knew – that her and I were related. I decided that I wouldn’t question her on the matter – she would tell me in her own time what the files had shown her, as she often did. I was slowly growing used to the idea of GLaDOS and I having a connection on a family level and the idea of her now being aware of it herself gave me a strange, comforting feeling. With a smile and a yawn, I gave Sergei a goodnight pat and leaned back against the wall.  
“G’night, Granny.” I mumbled, quickly letting my exhaustion kick in and drifting into a deep sleep.

When I woke up several hours later, I was under the covers with Sergei in my arms. I couldn’t have got myself into that position while sleeping, I noted curiously. I looked around my room – GLaDOS was gone and the computer was off. It was like she had never been there at all. Perhaps I’d dreamt up the whole thing. 

However, something was different from when I went to sleep. I had been properly tucked into the covers, like mom used to do when I was younger. However, she’d stopped doing it long ago, of course. I thought back to GLaDOS – could she have…?

Meh, whatever. I’d ask her in the morning. This was way too comfy not to make the most of.


	8. The Sunset

When I woke up not long later and went to visit her, it seemed that GLaDOS was in no mood to talk about the events that had transpired a few hours previously. She was back in her chassis, acting like nothing had happened. I could tell this behaviour was deliberate – I knew her well enough to tell what she was thinking just by how she held herself when she was in her chassis. For example, right now she was as high above the ground as possible, her optic focused on a monitor displaying Atlas and P-Body’s testing. This meant, in a nutshell, “fuck off”. However, when it came to mother and I, her behaviour seemed almost… gentle. I noticed before mom, but when I brought it up with her she just told me to leave GLaDOS alone and she would come around eventually. GLaDOS’ mood swings were not unusual, true, but when they improved her mood? Something was wrong.

About halfway through the day, my curiosity got the better of me so I (as quietly as possible) hacked back into GLaDOS’ system and tried to look for the files I had opened for her. However, they were gone from their former location – had she moved them, or hidden them again? Why didn’t she want me to see them?

I guess she was planning on staying quiet about it. Maybe she was hoping that if she left it long enough, she would just forget all about it, and life would continue as normal. For a minute, I thought about just letting her do it – what could I do to stop her, anyway? But then, a question popped into my head – something I wanted to know the answer to.

Why did she keep locking her past away? What was she so afraid of?

Sergei was mumbling away to himself on my bed, staring at the floor. With a sigh I shut down the computer and took him into my arms.  
“What are you mumbling about?” I questioned him. He looked up at me with his bright red eye, as if examining me.  
“Caroline has returned.” Was all he said before he went back to mumbling. Feeling a nervous chill run up my spine, I cast a glance back at the computer, before wordlessly walking out of the room and making a beeline straight for GLaDOS’ chamber. He went silent after that, simply watching the hallway ahead of us with some curiosity. I called on the elevator, turning away from it to look back the way we had come. It was the first time I had really thought about the past this much – there had been life here before GLaDOS and the other robots. Hundreds of humans, including Granny, rushing about like headless chickens, completing tasks and making science. When I tried to think of all the people who must have walked these halls before me, my head spun. I wondered if GLaDOS remembered those days, or if she’d tried to forget them too. Maybe, she hadn’t even been alive then. Who knows? She never talked to me much about the past before mom killing her the first time (and she certainly talked about that a lot). 

The elevator gave a ping when it arrived. I stepped on board, placing Sergei down on the floor, and selected the Central AI Chamber. This was always a complicated and fun route for the recalibrated elevators – I said that they had been recalibrated because they now had the ability to travel sideways and diagonally to get to literally anywhere in the facility. As the elevator started on its way and we watched the innards of the facility flutter by, I cast my thoughts back to the facility in a time before GLaDOS. I would need to try and do some subtle research into it, I could already guess that she wouldn’t allow it. Who worked here? What were they like? What scandals did they used to deal with down here? Maybe it was like that terrible TV show I’d watched a few episodes of – they were saved to somebody’s computer down here. What was it… Eastenders? Yeah, that was it! Drama all of the time! That would have been brilliant! Oh, why did GLaDOS need to kill them all!? It would have been so amazing, stirring shit up and poking into people’s business all of the time!

Eventually, the elevator pinged again to signal our upcoming arrival into GLaDOS’ chamber. When the elevator doors slid open, GLaDOS was humming a song as she worked on building a Testing Chamber. I recognized it as “Jolly Good Fellow”. I could swear that my heart stopped for just a moment. Sergei trotted out of the elevator without a care in the world and settled down on the ground, curling his legs up underneath him. It was his version of lying down, and he always looked incredibly cute while doing it. I coughed to get GLaDOS’ attention, but was ignored. So, I sat down on the floor beside Sergei, and waited until she was finished. Even then, she did not pay me any mind for several minutes as she ‘trimmed out the fat’ of the new chamber she had designed.   
“…Caroline was taught that song by somebody, but I don’t know who. I just thought you’d find that interesting.” GLaDOS then spoke up, causing me to smirk.  
“Probably Grandad, whoever he was.” I thought I saw her freeze in her movements for a second, before relaxing and continuing with her work.   
“So you have worked out what I saw last night? Even after the trouble I went through to hide the files again?” GLaDOS’ voice became nothing short of a whisper and I nodded as she turned around to face me at long last.  
“That Caroline was mom’s mom, making her my granny. Yeah, I’ve known for a while.” I explained. She seemed a little taken aback.  
“I can hear her voice in my head. We’re arguing right now.” She said matter-of-factly, before turning back to the Testing Chamber on-screen she was building. This surprised me a little – had we unlocked Caroline as well as all of her memories? Was she now officially roommates with GLaDOS again?   
“What about?” I asked her. She shook her head slightly in response.  
“She’s threatening me with deactivation if I ever hurt or kill you.”  
“Oh…”   
“But you don’t need to worry about that. You’re much too valuable a Test Subject for me to kill right now.” She replied and I retorted with a roll of my eyes.  
“Jeez, that makes me feel much safer.” 

I left her alone not long after that, realizing that she and Granny still had compromises to reach. I sat with Sergei and Wheatley in Testing Chamber 02 for a while and watched as the sky grew orange with the promise of a good sunset. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a perfect sunset – not for a few years, anyway. With this in mind, I decided to find a good vantage point from where I could watch it. 

Both Sergei and Wheatley accompanied me on this quest, offering suggestions and ideas. However, I eventually settled for an idea that I knew well – the panels that made the outside of the building. 

I rode the elevator with them all the way up to the Break Room, which was basically a wide open-space room with a few chairs and tables, equipped with a bar and a broken arcade machine. If I knew the layout of this building well enough by now, then the Aperture Science logo that branded the outside of the building should be right… about… here! 

Basically, the walls of the facility worked as follows: There were the inside walls, which consisted of panel arms facing in the way. Then, there were the outside walls, which were the panel arms that made up the outside of the building. These panels were slightly thicker and better insulated than the indoor ones, for obvious reasons. I drew a black circle on the white panel I had chosen so I remembered which one it was, and then proceeded to pry it away from the wall. I slid inside the familiar sea of panel arms, finally choosing one of the outer panels further up and prying that one open as well. Just as I had predicted, this panel was smack-bang in the middle of the giant Aperture Science logo. Luckily, hacking the panel arms was also simple. Then, I slid out into the world and landed neatly on the inside of the logo which was right under the panel. From here, the sunset fading behind the trees looked just right. I sat down using the logo as my seat, finding it quite cosy and bringing my knees up to my chin. The fresh air was relieving and fantastic, different from the weak air GLaDOS spoon-fed us back in the facility. Nothing could quite beat fresh air, I decided.   
“Sergei’s coming through, Luv!” Wheatley shouted through to me. A moment later, Sergei fell through the loose panel with an ecstatic “Whee!” and I caught him in my arms, steadying him on the flattest part of the logo beside me.  
“Are you coming out too, Wheatley?” I shouted back in. There was a moment of hesitation before he replied.   
“N-No, I’m fine in here! I’ve, uh… I’ve got some work to do, yeah that’s it!” I heard him speeding away on his management rail. Wait a second, Wheatley never actually did his work… 

So he was frightened. Scared of the outside world. Fair enough, I guess, but Sergei hadn’t been the least bit terrified. I guess it concerned some robots more than others. Off in the distance, I heard the familiar howling chorus of that damned pack of coyotes – okay, yes, Wheatley had every right to be scared.  
“Bastard!” I instinctively reached for my bow and was momentarily shocked when I realized it wasn’t there. Crap! I’d left it in my room! GLaDOS was right, I really was an imbecile! Leaving the facility without my bow, what was I thinking!?

Even if I was still several stories above the ground where they roamed, anything could happen. I could fall, or the logo could break away from underneath me, or there could be a meteor storm, or a resonance cascade, or-

“Ah. Here you are.” I looked back towards the loose panel to see an android GLaDOS sticking her head out, shielding her eyes against the sun. This… would be her first time outside for over one hundred years. If she was nervous, she certainly wasn’t showing it. She clambered through the wall gap and dropped down beside us, still looking anywhere but directly at the sun.   
“You seem surprisingly calm.” I remarked as she sat down beside Sergei and I, draping her legs over the side of the logo and examining everything around us carefully.   
“The only thing that worried me about stepping outside,” She replied. “Was how ugly it was going to be.”   
“And is it ugly?” I asked.  
“Oh, absolutely.” 

I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. For somebody who thought the outside was ugly, she certainly seemed interested in everything.   
“Eric told me that it used to be pretty out here… once, a long time ago,” I told her.  
“Well, I wouldn’t know. This is the first time that I’ve seen anything like this.” She commented. I saw her zoom in on a wrecked car, turned on its side in the car park.   
“What’s that?” She asked, pointing to the mechanical eyesore. I smirked. Surely she should know this.  
“That’s a car, GLaDOS.” I responded and she nodded in understanding.   
“So, that’s what they look like. I was told they were shiny… and that they had wheels. That one doesn’t.”  
“It probably did, once. That car’s broken.”  
“Broken…” She barely spoke the word. She reached for a spot on the back of her neck, but snapped her hand away quickly. We sat in silence for a few more moments. The sunset was finally nearing its end. I could see the darkness creeping in above us.   
“GLaDOS, look at the sun.” I commanded but she merely gave me a look that suggested that I had grown two heads.  
“Looking directly at the sun for any length of time can incur serious eye damage which in turn can cause blindness-Oh!” I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around to face the sunset, which shut her up immediately.   
“It’s pretty, right?  
“Pretty… maybe.” Despite how convincing she was trying to sound, her tone of voice gave her away – she was amazed.   
“The sunset used to be the best thing about my day. Sometimes, it was the only reason I got up in the morning.” I wasn’t sure why I told her that – it’s not like she would understand.  
“…I don’t have anything like that. I just get up.” She frowned – her pupils were going crazy, staring at the sun.  
“Don’t stare at it too long!” I turned her back to look at me and she blinked rapidly.   
“W-What is this!? What are these strange shapes blocking my vision!?” She squeaked as her hands shot out and grabbed hold of my shoulders – jeez, her grip was like iron. Despite the pain that shot through me I laughed.   
“That’s what happens when you look at the sun too long!” I spoke mockingly.  
“Is it permanent? Am I blind?”   
“It will wear off in a second.” 

After a moment where she was frozen in something pretty close to terror, she blinked and relaxed.   
“I would like to say that I am relieved to see you, but in truth I’m not.” She spoke dryly. I merely rolled my eyes.   
“Love you too, GLaDOS.”

We became aware of a curious sound off in the distance. It was familiar to me after a moment, but GLaDOS seemed perplexed – perhaps worried.   
“That sounds like the helicopter from a while back…” I pondered, scanning the skies carefully. It was not in sight yet.  
“We should get inside.” The android beside me suddenly spouted. I didn’t understand her urgency, but decided to obey her anyway - she never got worried for nothing, which was something I had learned the hard way. I prepared to move as she climbed up through the loose tile, soon popping her head back out to make sure we didn’t fall to our deaths, or something along those lines. When I was about to pick up Sergei, there was a sudden roar, an increase in volume from the helicopter and a rush of air as it emerged from around the corner of the facility and whooshed past us like a tempest. I was wrenched from my spot and was nearly carried away with the vehicle – the only reason I knew I was still on the ledge was because GLaDOS’ early iron grip was now applied to my wrist, which she had grabbed just in time. However, Sergei had been left unattended to. Luckily still perched where I had left him, his guns shot open and he narrowed his eye at the helicopter, which was now hovering a few feet away, its inhabitants examining us through binoculars.   
“Target Aquired!”

The second Sergei opened fire and bulls-eyed the helicopter’s unfortunate pilot, the whizzing air vehicle began to spin and swoop violently as two members of the crew panicked and wrestled for control. However, they were too late and the helicopter crashed with elephantine force into the hard tarmac of the car park, the cockpit actually folding in on itself and crushing anybody within, including their hopes of survival. The tail snapped, the blades bent and jutted to a halt and after a moment more, all was still. All we could hear was the fizzing of the machine’s busted engine.  
“I’d congratulate you, Sergei, if it wasn’t for the fact that they might not have been hostile.” I scolded him with a firm frown once I was steady again.  
“They were here for a reason.” Was the only reply he would give. 

We waited until the next morning to explore the wreckage, although I did not sleep well that night. GLaDOS for whatever reason had made the scarce decision to not sleep at all and had been reading up on helicopters all through the night without a break. She had been so absorbed in her work that I was surprised to find that she hadn’t had time to put any tests together for us, forcing her to bring out some of the old tests that she had stockpiled. 

GLaDOS, mom, Eric and I ventured out into the car park to explore the wreckage and see if we could find its origins. If humans were alive near here, I was sure mom would want to know – back in the fort, she had been determined to make sure that no humans ever got near us. I was always confused by this, but I never questioned her. I just assumed that she knew best. GLaDOS was amazed by the helicopter – she scanned every inch of it, tested the metal and at one point even licked up some of the petrol leaking from its engine. Her response to this was a scowl and a curse as she wiped her tongue clean. 

Mom and Eric were looking over the humans with me. They were burnt to a crisp for the most part, but one body was intact enough that we could get some idea of what he was wearing. At one point, I unearthed an odd symbol which looked a bit like an A when I was raiding his body for anything of use. It was on a patch of fabric loose from his arm. I showed it to mom and she seemed to break out into a cold sweat, mumbling something which sounded like “Lambda”. When I asked about it, she shook her head and shoved the piece of material into her pocket. 

Whatever that symbol meant, it couldn’t have been good. We did our best to dispose of the wreckage but evidence of it still littered the car park. At least if other humans did show up, we had a slightly better chance of getting away unscathed with their helicopter gone. However, GLaDOS disregarded any chance of a human attack – and thus, so did I.


	9. When Nations Collide Pt.1

He hated nights like this. Nights where the sky was clear and the moon smiled down upon them ominously, illuminating the woods that concealed them from danger. The air was tranquil, the trees still as if time itself had been frozen. The only thing that convinced him that time moved as normal was the delighted laughter of his men far below, who were sitting around the campfire in the courtyard.

He hated nights like this – nights of peace and calm – because anything could sneak up on you. He had learned that the hard way. The last time he had dared to relax on a night like this, he had lost so many of his followers that the small handful of guys he had below were all he had left of his original troop. Luckily, other members of their movement had taken them in, otherwise they would have died out in the wilderness to those damned coyotes they had tried so hard to avoid. 

They were Followers of the Lambda, as they called themselves now – the resistance against the Combine, who had been mostly exterminated, but still remained. They were a stubborn race, still fighting against the humans to retake the planet after the stunt pulled by the One Free Man in Bulgaria decades ago. Foolishly, humans still sided with them, and they clashed more often nowadays now that they were in smaller groups. The Combine had always been everywhere – they had fanned out and had taken the rest of the world by force after the legendary Black Mesa Incident, which was like a fable to him. Everything had developed from there – his parents had told him all that he knew about the days of concrete Combine rule, which wasn’t very much. However, one thing that was deeply rooted into him, despite being one of many who were in the second generation of resistance fighters (who, admittedly, had not experienced the worst of what the Combine had once had to offer), was a deep hatred for the alien invaders. As long as the Combine existed, so would the Lambda. The resistance movement had globalised shortly after the City 17 uprising as communications were established with rebel groups across the water, in other continents like America and Asia. They all became one, moving as one united, unstoppable wave upon the Combine forces and sent them packing. It was around that time that he had been born. But of course that was about sixty years ago. 

Now, he was a respected chieftain to his peers and had long been so. Based in what was formerly the state of Michigan, USA, his particular rebel group had called themselves the Bloodhawks. Names had become popular amongst the different rebel groups and bases so they could distinguish between each other over the radio channels. Of course, now there was only himself and five men left of what was formerly the Bloodhawks – they had moved in to the base of their allies, the Bears, and he was now co-leading the whole base with the chief of the Bears, a young man called Eli. Most of the second generation had been named after the only biblical figures they had – he was pretty sure two of his peers were named Gordon, and most of the girls he had met in his life were named either Judith or Alyx.

However, he was called Frank, after his father. A simple enough name, one that made him feel unique. Of course, he was normally called ‘Frank the Crank’ by his peers for his typical bad mood, not that it bothered him much. They still looked to him for guidance and he was more than happy to give it to them, so as long as they didn’t call him ‘Frank the Crank’ one too many times.

Eli emerged from the trap door behind his chair, his face streaked with the sweat and dirt of a productive, slightly dangerous day.  
“Frank, I’ve got some bad news.” He said, breathless.  
“What is it?” He was grateful to be able to look away from the trees. Their stillness had been starting to unnerve him.  
“The chopper we sent out a few hours back… it hasn’t returned.”   
“Still?” Frank stood away from his chair, giving his greying rose gold hair a ruffle with his gloved hand.  
“Nope, we’ve lost connection with their radio too. It’s like they’ve just disappeared.” He spoke gravely. Frank responded with a wordless nod and turned back to look at the moon.  
“If it’s ok with you, I’d like to take some of your men out with me and my boys in the morning to look for it. If something’s happened to the chopper, I need to know if it was the Combine or not.” He soon requested, Eli only giving a grunt of approval as his reply. He didn’t cast a glance back as his partner journeyed back down the ladder, closing the trap door behind him, leaving Frank by himself. He gazed up at that ominous moon, pondering about the fate of the men inside that potentially doomed helicopter. Hopefully they just ran out of fuel and couldn’t find their way back, he thought to himself, but he already knew that was wishful thinking.

***

The Night Terrors were back. 

They’d stopped upon my initial arrival to Aperture but, for whatever reason, they returned in full force last night. I just figured that it had been my stress over the helicopter, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d returned to the old Aperture logo where Sergei had shot the helicopter down and watched the moon inquisitively as I tried to calm my nerves. Surprisingly, Sergei had not been awoken by my frantic behaviour, so I left him sleeping in my room. The worst part about Night Terrors was always waking up – I never felt like I was awake and was always shitscared that the horror would continue as I tried to fall back to sleep or if I ran into somebody. The last Night Terror I had before coming here hadn’t been all that bad – or maybe I was just used to them. But the one I had last night… it was something completely different and new, mystic and paralyzing all at once. A few stray howls from those damned coyotes triggered another fear reaction. Not being able to control my own movements, I rocketed back up into the facility through the gap in the tiles, letting out a piercing scream as I went. I crashed right into mom.  
“I thought I’d find you here.” She held me close. I couldn’t stop myself from erupting into tears, crying into her shoulder.   
“I heard you wake up, but you took off like a flash before I could stop you.” She admitted, rubbing my back.  
“T-This one was different…” I mumbled, causing her to pull away ever so slightly to look me right in the eyes.   
“In what way?”   
“It was the same setting as usual, a strange place underground, but for some reason GLaDOS was there and there was weird monsters with red eyes and I saw that symbol we found yesterday on those people in the helicopter and-!”   
“Wait, slow down!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small piece of fabric that the logo was embedded on. “You saw this logo?”  
“Yes! It was there, it was spray painted on a wall and there was gunfire, screaming, something huge on three legs-!”   
“That’s enough.” She pulled me back into her, prompting me to subconsciously continue sobbing into her shoulder. I thought I felt her gulp, but was too busy to really act upon it. 

***

“That wasn’t just a Night Terror she had, GLaDOS.” Chell faced off against the giant supercomputer, who had been rudely awoken not ten minutes before and then bombarded with the story of what had just transpired.   
“It sounds like a Night Terror to me,” She responded dryly. “What else could it be?”  
“I think it was a vision.”  
GLaDOS spluttered in the next moment, her sound card freaking out from shock. I had the amusing image of android GLaDOS drinking a cup of tea and then spitting it out as I spoke.  
“That’s preposterous.” She concluded, finally focusing her full attention upon me.  
“I don’t think it is,” I said with a shake of my head.  
“Aperture Science proved visions impossible in 1983-” She began but I cut her off.  
“First of all: Black Mesa proved visions impossible in 1983. Secondly, both companies are wrong as Caroline has just proved that they are possible.” I said with a smirk.   
“How can you be so sure?” The computer responded with some venom. She hated having her opinions challenged, which was exactly why it was so fun to do so.  
“Because what happened in the Night Terror sounded a lot like what apparently happened during the Black Mesa Incident and the Seven Hour War that took place in 200X!” Chell countered with a little bit of ferocity, stunning GLaDOS into silence for but a moment.  
“…I do not know of these events.” She reminded the human, causing Chell to smack her palm against her forehead.  
“No, of course you don’t.” 

Having missed all of it herself, Chell only knew the vague details that Caroline’s dad had told her. Time to relay these to GLaDOS and fill her in on all that she’d missed these past sixty years. 

***

About an hour before dawn, Frank and his men left the sanctuary that was the Bears camp (which was an old ruined three-story house, completely hollowed out on the inside with no roof at all) and took off in the direction that their helicopter had left in yesterday. Frank knew the area it had been scouting well – it was the woodland surrounding what was called the ‘Aperture Science Enrichment Centre’. He knew little about the building itself, only that it had fallen into serious decay in the past twenty years. He also knew something about the Aperture Science being the rival of the Black Mesa, the ones responsible (although not intentionally) for the arrival of the Combine. What he definitely knew was that just over twenty years earlier, the love of his life had emerged from there, shaken and frightened, only to die three years later. He had been adamant about keeping clear of this place since then, instead letting the helicopter scout the area for him. As the building loomed overhead, not even half an hour down the road from their camp on foot, he was already starting to feel uneasy. Whether or not it was his imagination, the building looked considerably more… together? Than it did since the last scouting party had journeyed this way in the helicopter. He shook his head. There was no way that the facility had been rebuilding itself! That was just insane!

They ventured out into the car park like a pack of nervous, skittering rats, zig-zagging through the broken cars and making their way to the centre of the vast expanse of cement, where there was obvious signs of a crash or explosion. However, there was no helicopter to speak of. Frank frowned inwardly and scanned the ground. Something wasn’t right here. There were signs of a very recent struggle but no remains? Somebody had tried to conceal what had happened here. It couldn’t have been the Combine, they didn’t attempt to clean up human massacres. It was a good tactic to frighten those that were still alive. Wild animals, no matter what they were couldn’t have brought down a whole helicopter. Not even the European Antlions of legend could pull that off. The Rebels had never turned on each other, so they couldn’t be responsible. Who was it, then?  
“Sir!” One of the Gordons ran up to him, nearly tripping over his own feet. In his hands he was carrying a piece of gunmetal grey helicopter external plating, singed and bent on one side like it had been forcibly torn from its position. It had crashed here.   
“Split up, scan the perimeter! Keep low, whatever did this could still be around!” 

His group all scrambled to duck behind and inside various wrecked vehicles, while he himself took shelter in the front seats of an upturned van. Silence befell them as they shuffled around, all scanning the area with sharp eyes.   
“Uhh… Sir?” He got the biggest fright of his life and shot up, banging his head off of the relatively comfy driver’s seat. Gordon had taken the liberty of hiding in the same vehicle as him, in the luggage part of the van.  
“Y-Yes?” He inquired, trying to hide his fear.  
“What do you think did this?”  
“It’s hard to say,” He responded. “Most likely the Combine, but they’ve never tried to conceal their acts before. I find it hard to believe.”   
“Sir, over here!” A voice called and he rushed from the van towards the voice. One of the Bears was standing beside a chainlink fence and was looking with some interest at something behind it.   
“What is it?” Frank asked, checking the safety on his machine gun.  
“Look there!” He pointed to the building, Frank following his finger – and his eyes landed on one of the tiles that made the building – except it was hanging from the wall from a strange, mechanical arm which twitched and sparked occasionally. Frank was confused as to what the Bear was so interested in it for, until he noticed what appeared to be the helicopter, crumbled up like a piece of paper inside one of the facility’s industrial dumpsters. He only knew it was there because its tail was hanging out. He couldn’t stop himself from gawking as the Bear summoned the rest of the men.  
“It looks like it became a Strider’s football!” He couldn’t stop the pitch rising in his voice, making him squeak. He looked back to the loose tile, wondering the unlikely – his men could still be alive, and had broken into the facility to seek shelter. Either that, or the helicopter’s destroyers were inside.  
“What should we do now, Sir?” The same Bear asked. He turned back to look at his men.  
“We’re going in. Prepare for a fight.” Immediately, he spun around and began to scale the fence, the others following his lead soon after. 

***

Elsewhere around this time, GLaDOS suddenly stiffened in her chassis and looked away from the screen, where Vic and Rosie were shown in one of the new testing tracks. Caroline was sitting on the floor by her, along with Chell, Wheatley and Eric. They had formed something of a protective circle around Caroline, who was simply staring at the floor with dull eyes. Chell knew that she was normally like this the day after a Night Terror – she had the unusual ability to remember them after they occurred – something of a gift and a curse, Chell could imagine. She would spend the whole day replaying the Terror in her head, trying to make sense of it. However, this one was proving difficult for her. Only Chell had experienced Caroline like this before – Eric wouldn’t take his eyes off of her, as if he was worried that looking away would result in some harm coming to her. Wheatley sat on her lap, fondly looking up at her – sometimes she would respond with a glance of her own and when she did she would temporarily tighten her grip on him. 

Chell finally noticed GLaDOS’ odd behaviour and looked to her, surprised to see GLaDOS’ chassis right above them, as if she was joining the protective circle. She let out a low, angry growl like the noise of a predatory animal, which earned even Caroline’s attention.  
“What is it, GLaDOS?” Chell finally inquired. GLaDOS refused to respond immediately. It took a few more seconds of hard-drive whirring for her to answer.  
“We have intruders in the facility.” 

The tiles of the chamber ceiling parted and at least seven monitors similar to the one she already had out descended, forming a circle around her. On each screen a different security camera’s footage appeared. Caroline shot to her feet with an expressionless face, handed Wheatley to Chell and grabbed hold of GLaDOS’ neck, hauling herself up onto the Supercomputer’s back. The last time she had tried this, GLaDOS had actually thrown her off – but today GLaDOS almost seemed to welcome it. When Caroline was comfortable, GLaDOS lifted herself up towards the ceiling so she was level with the TVs and numerous things began to happen all at once throughout the facility. The power deactivated, letting the auxiliary red lights kick in, turrets fell from holes in the ceiling and took sentry in hallways, entire rooms were rearranged, blocked off and moved, and certain test-only instruments were applied to the living areas of the complex. Caroline took note of the Crushers GLaDOS had set up in the main lobby and the turrets in every hallway beyond that. Whoever was invading, they had a very slim chance of actually getting to anything valuable that the facility had within it – AKA, GLaDOS herself.   
“Hey, GLaDOS.” Caroline suddenly perked up, her eyes focused on the footage of the main lobby.  
“Yes?”  
“Move Vic and Rosie’s test chamber to right under the lobby, then make a trap door leading into it. When our intruders walk over the trap door, drop them into the chamber.”  
“Can I ask why?”  
“We’re gonna fuck with them.” The devilish grin on Caroline’s face would have given Cave Johnson himself nightmares.   
“And how do you propose we- Oh,” The supercomputer’s optic narrowed in her version of a grin. “I see.” 

One screen switched to the camera in Vic and Rosie’s testing chamber. It showed them looking incredibly perplexed as their chamber was moved. Rosie took her walky-talky out of one pocket and Caroline instinctively reached for hers – Rosie, Caroline, Vic and Eric all had walky-talkies on the same radio frequency, so they could communicate with one another when at far ends of the facility.   
“Caroline, what’s going on? Is GLaDOS moving us?” Rosie’s commanding voice asked.   
“Yeah. Listen, there’s intruders in the facility. We have a plan to drop them into your test chamber.” Caroline replied simply, struggling to contain her giggling as Rosie freaked out in response.  
“W-Why!?”  
“Because your test chamber is currently the only one filled with deadly goo. We’re going to use that to our advantage!” Was Caroline’s response. The two girls looked back to GLaDOS’ camera as she began speaking.  
“Think of it as an addition to the test. You will both earn points for each individual you kill, assuming there is more than one. You can earn bonus points by killing them in creative ways, using anything in the testing chamber. In fact, let me give you some more toys,” GLaDOS began explaining, before halting to gift Vic and Rosie three Weighted Storage Cubes, a button which activated a Crusher on the other side of the chamber and also a few turrets which were set to not attack Vic and Rosie. Vic portalled one up to an unreachable ledge, and Rosie placed the other one where they could easily reach it if it fell or was damaged. She also switched each panel to make it portalable. “There, that should be enough.”  
“But, GLaDOS…” Vic nervously piped up, taking the walkie-talkie from Rosie. “We can’t kill people, we’re not built like that!”   
“Whoever earns most points will get the next week off.” GLaDOS added on.

Both the humans’ eyes went wide. They cast each other a quick glance, before nodding at one another and then at the camera.   
“Alright, we’ll do it.” Rosie confirmed.  
“Excellent. Do not disappoint me.” Was GLaDOS’ excited response.   
“GLaDOS, movement in the front lobby!” Caroline pointed to the respective screen. The supercomputer snapped around to observe the intruders. 

Several men, all armoured and armed – not quite as heavily as the Security Guards this place had once had, GLaDOS calculated, but still formidable. She wondered with the smallest twitch of worry if she had set Rosie and Vic up for an impossible battle. Caroline leaned over her, trying to get a better look at them.  
“Zoom in on that guy’s armband.” She requested. GLaDOS did as she was asked, and a fuzzy, heavily pixelated Lambda symbol was revealed to her.   
“M-Mom!!” Caroline shouted, drawing Chell’s attention from the babbling Wheatley. “It’s more of those men from yesterday! They have that weird symbol on their arms!” 

Chell’s only response was to gulp. So, GLaDOS had been wrong – they had attacked. Chell had a very bad feeling that she knew who would be leading them, but she didn’t want to think about it. Hopefully he would die on the way here and she wouldn’t have to face him again. She looked to GLaDOS, who was swaying gently from side to side in a sort of childish eagerness. For the first time in her life, admittedly, she was glad that GLaDOS was a psychopathic murderer. They would certainly need her over the next few hours.


	10. When Nations Collide Pt.2

“Sir, this place gives me the creeps!” One of the soldiers nervously chirped. Frank whisked around and gave the man a rough bump on the head with the hilt of his gun.  
“Stay quiet!” The front lobby was not pleasant by any means. With dirty metal shutters down over the entry doors and windows, the lights having broken long ago, what little light that trickled in from outside cast the wide, neglected hall in a baleful glow. Frank supposed that the rumbling they had felt earlier had only added to the daunting atmosphere that this place gave off, fraying the nerves of his men and, regrettably, himself. It had been a while since this place had last seen any form of civilized life, if the layers of dust lining the countertops and the rotting, sodden information leaflets scattering the floor were anything to go on.  
“Hell, its cold in here.” One of his men mumbled.   
“Agreed.” was another man’s irritated response.

In the centre of the room was a circular desk with a hole in the middle, lined with office chairs, computer monitors and telephones. Frank rushed ahead of his group and ducked behind it, gun poised. He worked his way around the circumference, before making a dash for the wide doorframe that led deeper into the facility. Keeping his gun peering into the hallway, he looked back to his men, all anxiously waiting.  
“Area’s clear!” He called quietly. Springing to life, his peers edged forward one by one, copying his movements until a majority of them were beside him, under the guise of the ancient doorframe – and a security camera, which observed them silently. The maniac AI on the other end of the camera would have grinned at that moment, if she had been able. 

There was a click underneath them. Frank only had enough time to look down and see the floor disappearing underneath their feet, as he and many of his men descended into the same test chamber as Vic and Rosie.

The two girls in question hid behind a nearby raised platform, watching the chaos unfold amongst the intruders. Not all of them had fell into the pit and were standing, gawking at the trap door and shouting encouragement to their fallen comrades. Two of them were unfortunate enough to miss the floor completely and tumble right into the deadly pit of goo that created something of a moat between both sides of the chamber. The girls had propelled themselves over earlier and were on the same side as the exit door, which was good for easy escape, if necessary. The intruders, obviously, were stuck on the same side as the entry door, which would not be granting them freedom any time soon.

One of the intruders, with greying rose gold hair was exceptionally quick to his feet upon hearing the screams of his two companions, burning alive below in the toxic liquid. He reached for his gun, but was shocked to find the floor where it was placed rise up on a mighty robotic arm and then bend in the direction of the moat.  
“Shit, no, NO-!” The gun fell into the pool below, as well as the guns of every other man who did not have an iron grip. Those who managed to hold on to their guns unlatched the safety and readied them for battle, but they saw with surprise and dawning confusion that there were no targets to speak of. 

As his team recuperated, Frank looked up to his men who had not fallen, still in the main lobby above.   
“You need to get out of here!” He called to them.  
“Sir, we can’t! The doors have all closed behind us! We’re trapped in here!”   
“In that case, wait for my orders!” He responded gravely, before turning back to those in the same dilemma as him and barking out commands to them as well. The trap door closed above him, sealing him off from the rest of his peers, but he did not notice.

They fell into an uneasy silence as a charming, feminine robotic voice flooded through invisible speakers in the room.   
“Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Centre. Thank you for participating in today’s testing.”

Frank’s heart slowly picked up speed as he listened to the voice and realised how much trouble they were in. At the mention of the word ‘testing’, memories from his childhood of his father telling him of the resonance cascade came flying back. One particular scene was of his father telling him where it happened – in a testing chamber in a scientific research facility, much like this one. 

Black Mesa might have created the resonance cascade, but heaven only knows what this one would create.  
“Keep your wits about you! Stay low!” He called to the others, who responded with hasty nods. However, fear of the unknown was so deeply rooted into his men already that only a few of them actually managed to perform the action.

Vic and Rosie looked to one another.  
“What do we do now?” The younger of them asked. Despite being heavily involved with Aperture, neither of them had any experience in killing people and quite frankly, they didn’t even know where to start.  
“There’s so many of them! We didn’t expect that!” was Rosie’s hastened reply.   
“Uhh, should we hide?” Vic replied.  
“We seem to be doing that pretty well already.”  
“Let’s just stay put, then.”  
“Fine by me.”

***

“What’s taking those two so long? Why aren’t the intruders dying?” GLaDOS growled, shifting uncomfortably in her chassis. Caroline gave her white surface an affectionate pat.  
“Activate the turrets; that will get them moving.” She suggested. GLaDOS gave a hesitant nod, before looking back to the screen. Chell shook her head and concentrated on Wheatley. She’d seen enough death in her life without seeing her daughter partake in it too. 

***

“Sleep Mode: Deactivated.” Both turrets sang, their red sniper beams hitting the wall, heralding the beginning of the rebels’ impending doom. Every single man froze in place, their eyes finally landing on the spherical robots perched on three spidery legs. In turn, they locked on to two of them and their side panels popped open, revealing four guns. Each.  
“I see you.” They chirped in unison. Frank’s eyes widened. He looked to the raised floor behind him, then to his men.  
“Everybody get down!!” Then, he made a crazed dive for the shelter of the elevated floor, just as the turrets opened fire. He heard his men drop like flies, their cries of pain filling his mind. Only four of his comrades had been quick enough to join him in safety. The rest – he could already see the crimson pools staining the brilliant white of the chamber.   
“We need to shoot them down!” He mouthed to his comrades – only to realize that they were all empty-handed. Luck was not on his side – he really should have guessed. 

As silently as possible, he crept to the corner of his barricade and peeped his head out, taking in the sight of the nearest gun – remarkably close, but not close enough to make retrieving it a completely safe venture. Nevertheless, he knew it must be done. Taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, he rocketed out of his hiding spot and scooped up the weapon, darting back to safety with a speed he didn’t know he had. The turrets had barely got a lock on him by the time he was hiding again.

Across the moat, Vic and Rosie had seen the action and knew they had to act, as the intruders were armed again. Emerging from hiding, Vic placed a portal on the ceiling above the hiding contenders and then another underneath one of the storage cubes. It teetered over the edge of the portal for a second before falling through and hitting its mark – if the sound of somebody’s snapping neck was any indication. Vic gulped, breaking out into a cold sweat as she picked up the noise of the panicked kerfuffle of her adversaries – she had just taken a life. 

Frank did his best to remove the hefty iron cube of death from the back of his former comrade, grimacing along the way. The three that were left were shivering with fear, Gordon was even crying. He had been in some sticky situations in his life, hundreds of battles that he wasn’t expecting to return from – but this was without a doubt the worst. This one, he was completely sure, would be the one that killed him.   
“The Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube is one of the most important elements of each test. I see that you have already met.” The same feminine voice from earlier spoke with what Frank guessed was a hint of amusement. He frowned, cast his eyes to the ceiling and took in the sight of the blue portal. His eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates.

Aperture Science had perfected portal technology! He had thought that was just a rumour, told by his mother to keep him away from the facility in his younger years. “Go near that dark place and you’ll end up just like the Borealis – in an ice cold glacier, scared and alone.” He had never quite understood what she meant – for one thing, why would a boat have the emotional capacity to be scared and alone? However, now was not the time for thinking of such things. The portal above them had moved a few inches forward and was now hovering directly above him. He saw somebody on the other side, readying another cube.   
“Incoming!!” He cried, flipping out of the way. Gordon unknowingly followed him, not knowing what exactly his boss was backflipping away from, until the falling cube broke his back and cracked his skull.   
“Goddammit Gordon!” One of his remaining men screeched like a foghorn, giving his dead companion a fierce kick.   
“Stay down, you idiots! We can still get out of this!” Frank hissed. The two that remained slowly ducked low, never taking their eyes off of him.  
“How?” One asked, hopeful.  
“I don’t know yet. Give me a second to think.” He replied, before peering ever so slightly over the top of the barricade. There was no obvious way across the moat without the use of those portals. They really were stuck. 

“Waka waka!” A sharp feminine voice yelped and one of his men was thrown to the ground by a swift whack to the face, by a strange gun equipped to the arm of a rather pathetic teenage girl, thin as a stick. He was either knocked out or dead – either wouldn’t surprise him, that weapon looked heavy.   
“Yaaah!” His one remaining soldier, one of the youngest Bears, barely nineteen, scrambled behind him. Frank held out his arms – one last dire attempt to protect his men, he decided and looked the girl dead in the eyes. She responded with a nervous look of her own, her confidence diminishing.   
“VIC, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING!? THAT GUY HAS A GUN!” A more mature feminine voice squawked from the other side of the moat. He peered over to see a tall, curvy woman, very much the scientist type, standing with one of the black and white weapons in her hands. She looked a cross between terrified and stern.   
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT A GUN IS! IS IT DANGEROUS!?” Vic called back, totally disregarding the enemies beside her.  
“YES, IT’S VERY DANGEROUS! WHAT, WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN!?”   
“NOPE, BUT I WAS PARTIALLY RAISED IN A HIPPY COMMUNE!”  
“THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH.” The scientist-girl sighed, pressing a palm to her clammy forehead. 

Frank did not know what a ‘Hippy’ was and he did not much care. What mattered was getting himself and his surviving men out alive, assuming the ones trapped above him counted as such.  
Going against everything he stood for, he pressed his finger against the trigger of his blood-soaked weapon and pointed it directly at the heart of the girl known as Vic. She froze. He slowly rose to his feet, the turrets focused their beams on him but made no move.  
“Let us go, or I shoot.” He growled. Vic was one step closer to having a nervous breakdown, Rosie knew she would have to intervene. Once she blasted a portal into the wall, he spun around and aimed for Rosie’s head.  
“Don’t you try nothing, either. Or you’re both dead,” He looked back to his one surviving comrade. “Go and get a gun.”

He nodded and grabbed a shotgun from the hands of one of his fallen friends, checking it was loaded and pointing it at Rosie. Then, Frank aimed back at Vic.   
“One wrong move and you’re both dead.” Frank reminded them. Vic cast her terrified eyes to the security camera in the room, praying for any kind of help. 

***

“Oh God, guns!” Caroline exclaimed, causing Chell’s heart to leap in fear.   
“I knew they were armed, but… I didn’t realize they had such deadly weaponry.” GLaDOS’s constant shifting had increased in speed. Caroline was noticing that the giant robot’s metal chassis was beginning to get scalding hot – she was struggling to keep seated on the supercomputer without burning her legs.   
“GLaDOS, help!” Vic cried towards the security camera, making the computer freeze in her tracks. She mumbled something in binary, which Caroline remembered seeing in Wheatley’s code – it translated to ‘moron’, but that was the only part of it she understood.   
“Who’s Glados, huh? Is she your boss?” The man with the machine gun demanded, nudging the gun ever closer to poor little Vic, who could be seen shaking from fear from this distance.   
“S-Something like that…” She responded, unable to take her eyes off of the operational end of that dastardly weapon in his hands. She spared a glance at Rosie, who was looking back at her with an intense stare. It was some form of communication that only they understood.   
“Tell you what – We’ll let you both live, if you can tell us what happened to our helicopter and the men inside it. If you don’t know, tell us where your boss is and we’ll ask her instead,” Frank initiated negotiations. “If you refuse to tell us anything, well…” His gun made a warning click, causing Vic to let out a tiny, terrified wail and shield her eyes with the portal gun. 

After a few seconds of silence, he cocked the gun a little higher and peered through its zooming lens – his target was now smack-bang in the middle of Vic’s eyes.  
“What’s it gonna be? I don’t want to have to kill you.” He told her. She lowered the gun from her eyes as a result, looked once more at Rosie, saw the desperate look on the older girl’s face and finally cracked under the strain of the situation.   
“Leave the test chamber, turn left, keep going, then turn right, go up two floors in the elevator…” She could already picture her fiery demise by GLaDOS’ beloved incinerator either. Unfortunately, it simply frightened the poor girl more. “EXITTHEELEVATORGODOWNTHEHALLWAYGOINTOTHEBIGDOORONTHERIGHTANDFOLLOWTHEHALLWAYALONGANDSHE’SRIGHTTHEREOHGODPLEASEDON’TKILLME-!” Rosie portalled in behind her and whacked her on the head with the palm of her hand, afterwards gripping her shoulder tightly.  
“You’ve got your directions to GLaDOS, now let us go.” She spat in the direction of the two men, who lowered their guns and enabled their safety latches in response.   
“Thank you,” Frank bowed his head. “Now, how do we get out of this room.”

Now happy and chipper because she was no longer about to get her brains blown out, Vic walked over to the wall with a smile.  
“This way! Caroline showed me this!” She knelt down and gave the bottom panel three vicious knocks, causing the panel to eject from the wall at an angle on two small arms.   
“A secret escape panel… Now that’s clever.” Rosie mumbled to herself. The two intruders took one last look at their surprisingly calm adversaries and slipped into the maintenance tunnels behind the panel, taking the stairs back to the hallway above.

When Vic replaced the panel, they directed their attention to the weird static coming through the speakers and the security camera which appeared to be shaking with rage.   
“GLaDOS, he was going to kill us!” Rosie whined, predicting the oncoming onslaught with some worry for her and Vic’s health.   
“YOU SELF-ABSORBED PILES OF MEAT WITH BRAINS! VERY SMALL BRAINS!” GLaDOS’ voice erupted through the speakers with an intense volume and surprising anger that left their ears ringing and made all but the most robust speakers in the room short-circuit.   
“We’re sorry!” Vic yelled drastically. After a moment of silence, GLaDOS once again spoke.  
“It’s okay, for now. I’ll deal with you two later,” the panels at the top of the chamber parted and an elevator descended from somewhere unseen. “Get in. We need to stop them before they reach me.” 

***

Vic’s directions had been confusing and hard to follow, but luckily as long as they stayed to the main hallways, signs directed them the rest of the way. Why Aperture Science had a sign for “Top Secret Central AI Chamber” he couldn’t figure out, but because it seemed to be the heart of the facility, the two of them assumed that was their destination. He soon realized that this Glados woman was tracking where they were, as she was sending all manners of things to stop them – turrets, lasers, bombs, inconveniently placed portal walls, deliberate rubble blockages and even what appeared to be a herd of charging mechanical bulls. However, soon they were standing in a large, windowed hallway which led out over an incredible chasm going straight down, who knew how far. Before them was a mighty black cylinder, with the Aperture logo printed boldly on the side, with ‘GLaDOS’ printed elsewhere in even bolder letters. Why is her name spelt like that? Frank pondered. The two quickened their pace through the hallway upon prompting from a disgruntled turret behind them that they had managed to bypass. Those damn things were creepy, he concluded.

The door opened automatically for them upon their approach. They stood back, suddenly frightened – from this angle they could only see some of the chamber, but one thing they could tell was that it was huge and had a small group of people, including the two girls from earlier standing near the centre of the room, looking up at something. It took them a moment to prepare themselves before they walked in – although, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw. 

Whatever that strange mechanical creature was, it struck terror right into his heart. Glaring at him with a cold golden eye which shone with the same mischief as the eyes of a Combine Hunter, he unclicked the safety of his gun. The people around this creature were all armed with the strange black and white guns, and they looked incredibly pissed off, incredibly protective of this strange monster. It wasn’t a Combine synth, he knew that – it wasn’t built in the same style.   
“Ah, so you made it here. Allow me to welcome you properly.” The same womanly voice from the testing chamber rumbled through the spacious room. Frank realized that it was coming from the odd monstrous machine itself. A rush of wind beside him and violent smash caused him to whizz around, only to see that a spiked plate had crushed his only comrade, leaving him the sole survivor of his scouting party.   
“Oops, sorry. I guess I must have sent the wrong command. I was trying to use the Aperture Science Crusher Panel to kill you first and then the other one. Let me just correct that mistake...” The ‘Crusher’, as it was called lifted itself up from the ground, revealing the bloody mess that was once a person. “Ah. Now hold still.” 

He dived out the way as the crusher fell upon him and fired the gun with excellent precision, only some of the rapid-fire bullets missing GLaDOS. Of course a majority of them bounced off but she still felt the impact and flinched.  
“Ohh, you’re going to pay for that. I’ve just been painted.” She grumbled. He found several of the Crushers hovering tantalizingly close to him from nearly all angles. He checked that his machine gun was loaded with a rocket and took aim – at least, if he was going down, he could take out that white beast at the same time. 

“Stop!” Somebody, a female rushed away from her group and stood firm between the warring personalities.   
“What? You’re defending this human?” The creature sounded a trifle hurt. “…Why?”   
“I… know him. From when you sent me away.” She turned around to look at him, his jaw nearly dropping ten feet. Dark skin, black hair, brown eyes, that same muscular build that he had once known so well.  
“Chell?”   
“Yeah, it’s me.” She gave him a weary smile before looking back to the white creature.  
“GLaDOS, this is Frank. He’s-!”   
“Hold up, I’m back! Sorry I’m late,” Suddenly, a girl jumped from a panel above the creature, drew what looked like a bow from her back as she slid down its wires and finally perched on its neck, with an arrow aimed right at Frank. “Those bombs were very carefully placed, Sir. I’m impressed that you dodged them all, you and your stupid friend.”

The girl was very close to Chell’s double, he noted, but much younger and with a green ribbon tied into a bow tying her waist-long hair up in a high ponytail. Her arms were traced with numerous scars, likely from close encounters with animals (he had some himself). She looked strikingly familiar, but he couldn’t place her.  
“Oh, that was you? Bravo.” GLaDOS said in an almost cheery manner.  
“Hell yeah it was me. Who else could be so brilliant?” The girl in question thumped her fist off her chest, before returning to aiming the arrow at him. He looked to Chell, begging silently for further assistance.  
“Caroline, stop.” She looked up at the girl perched proudly on top of the robotic beast called GLaDOS, who returned the gesture with shock.   
“Why? He’s an intruder.” She went back to aiming immediately, pulling the arrow as far back as she could. He closed his eyes – this was it. He was about to die. It was either death by crusher or death by arrow – he knew which he would prefer.  
“He’s not just an intruder,” Chell continued. What she said next made his eyes snap open and his blood run cold. “He’s your father!”   
“He’s my what?” Caroline took the news surprisingly calmly, only relaxing her grip on the bow slightly.   
“And I’ll be damned if you are gonna kill your own father, Young Lady! Rabbits, fine. Stags, whatever. Intruders, cool beans. But you do not kill family, understand!?” It was not like Chell to go off on a tangent. In fact, it was very much unlike her to say much at all. Whether or not it was her fear spurring her into speech, Frank couldn’t tell.   
“Alright, alright. Jeez.” Caroline finally lowered the bow and Frank released his held breath in a sigh of relief.   
“This male… is Caroline’s father.” If it was possible for GLaDOS to sink any lower to the floor she would have fallen through it. Breathing a shaky sigh, Chell nodded.  
“He’s ugly. That must be where you get your ugliness from.” She looked up at Caroline as she spoke, who merely gave the top of GLaDOS’ head a playful slap.   
“Well, what do you want to do with him?” She next directed her words to Chell, who looked back to Frank with a small, downtrodden smile.   
“Let him return to the surface. He doesn’t belong down here.” 

GLaDOS and Caroline, their eyes expressionless, both regarded Frank for a moment longer as the Crushers around him were withdrawn and pulled out of sight. Caroline dismounted, approaching her mother with increasing nervousness, before gripping Chell’s t-shirt and hiding from the older male in the blue fabric.   
“The Vortigaunts told me that you both were killed…” Frank’s tired voice was barely audible, but it was all the two girls could hear. There was a ping above them, signalling that the Escape Lift had arrived.   
“I told them to tell you that. I didn’t want you coming back.” Chell said apologetically.  
“But why?”   
“I couldn’t leave here. I’m sorry.” 

Frank nodded, taking a moment to gaze at his family – Caroline especially. Wonderful, he thought to himself. My wife has Stockholm Syndrome and my daughter doesn’t like me. Luck really isn’t on my side. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but smile.  
“Go on, hurry up. Get out of here before I decide I’m not feeling so generous.” GLaDOS hissed.   
“Ok, I’m going.” He held up his hands in self-defence and gave his family – his daughter – a goodbye wave. Caroline for a moment seemed like she might return the gesture, but instead she only nodded her head in farewell and retreated to GLaDOS’ side, where she couldn’t clearly see him. 

He stepped into the elevator and closed his eyes as the doors shut and carried him upwards. Close to the ceiling, there was a fierce hissing sound and the elevator filled with an odd purple gas – he ducked down as low as he could but soon the gas overwhelmed him. He tried to fight off the dizziness for a second longer but it was too much and he passed out, his back against the smooth glass of the elevator.   
“What happened!? GLaDOS, what did you do!?” Chell exclaimed angrily, watching in horror as the elevator faded out of sight and the escape life rails disappeared along with it.   
“I merely whipped something up that would stop him coming back. That gas, certainly, will stop him coming back.” The supercomputer responded with a dark chuckle.  
“GLaDOS…” Chell seethed, walking right up to the computer and sticking her face into GLaDOS’ optic accusingly for the first time that she had dared. “Tell me what you did.” 

***

Frank woke up from what had possibly been the best sleep of his life. Lying on the warm tarmac, he pushed himself to his feet only to discover that he was in the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre car park. What am I doing here? He couldn’t seem to remember. There would be no reason for him to come here – his wife and child were the only connection he had to this place and they were dead. Yet, for some reason, he was happier than he had ever been in his life. His machine gun had been used recently – it was still warm from the friction of its firing. Clipping the safety back on, he merely shrugged it off and headed back in the direction of his base. Whatever happened here, it couldn’t have been too important if he couldn’t remember it, right?


	11. Caroline II and Wheatley

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I’d met her – who, you ask? Well, the human version of the robot of my dreams! She was perfect, a lovely creature (at least for a smelly human), with hair was black as night and her eyes like hazelnuts…

It was love at first sight, if you want my honest opinion. She just… oh, what’s the word… ‘Dazzled’ me! Enchanted me! Ruptured the sensors within me that handled emotions! Oh, I loved her, without a doubt!

“So, who is it, anyway?” My friend Rick and I were perched on one of the Extended Relaxation Vaults, looking down into the bottomless pit below.  
“She’s called Caroline. Charming girl… with a rather impressive figure, too.” I told him and he narrowed his lens.  
“Oh, that lovely lady? Don’tcha think she’s a bit out of yer league?” He questioned.   
“Maybe, but I’ve not lost hope yet, my friend!” I chirped.   
“Ah, so you have a plan to tell ‘er?” He pressed, leaning closer to me. “Do share with good ol’ Rick!”   
“Ah, get away! Why would I want to tell you!?” I shuffled away with a whine.  
“Come o~n, Wheatley! If yer plannin’ on snaggin’ yerself a wench, you’ll need the help of yer good pal Rick!” The Adventure Core chuckled, attaching himself to the management rail. “Follow me, I know somebody who’ll help us come up with a plan!” With a roll of my lens and a groan, I pursued him along the rail, doing my best not to imagine all of the horrors he would no doubt subject me to. 

Soon we were sitting in one of the abandoned offices on the lower floors. We’d had to throw ourselves most of the way as the management rails stopped several floors above. Posters peeled off the walls and my sensors picked up on the distinctive smell of damp.   
“What are we doing here, Rick?” I grumbled, and he gave a hoarse chuckle.  
“Just hold yer horses for a moment longer, Wheatley ol’ chum.” 

There was a rumbling somewhere above us, like something being thrown through the air vents, crashing against the sides. Then, another core popped out of said air vent, landing with a smash on the table in front of us.  
“FACT: That hurt.” It was the Fact Core, who also demanded to be known as Craig. This guy was a right twant… Why on earth did Rick think it would be a good idea to bring me here?  
“Ah Craig, good buddy! Wheatley here needs yer expert advice on something!” Rick handed the baton to me and I sighed as Craig turned his lens to me, waiting patiently.  
“If you must know, I like a girl, and-”  
“FACT: Wheatley’s chance of a successful romance is a pitiful 0.2 percent.” He spat out and I nearly choked on my wires.  
“I-I beg your pardon!?”  
“FACT: Wheatley is not what most women would find appealing. For one thing, Wheatley is a Personality Core, while his object of affection is human.” He continued. My ego was bruised more and more with each word.  
“Okay, sure our racial differences might prove to be a minor issue, I won’t argue with that, but if we truly loved each other we’d pull through, right?” I argued feebly, my circuits overheating with frustration.  
“FACT: Wheatley does not know how Caroline feels. FACT: Caroline likely does not like Wheatley in that way.” Craig continued. I glanced at Rick, silently begging him to say something in my defence, ANYTHING!   
“Actually, he’s probably right, pal. I hate to admit it, but you don’t really have any likeable qualities…” He closed his green lens and gave a nod to Craig. I was struck with shock, forced to look to the wall for a few moments. I tried to think of something to prove them wrong, but nothing came. All I could remember was every moment in my life that I had badly messed up. 

I sifted for what seemed like an age through my files, picking every piece of data apart for anything that could convince them and myself that I stood a chance with Caroline. Just as I was losing hope, Craig spoke up again.  
“FACT: Gaining the affection of Caroline may be possible, with an estimated 20 percent chance of success.” 

My motherboard skipped a beat and I twisted my lens back around to look at him.  
“…Are you serious?” I inquired in a hushed voice and the purple-eyed core gave a confident nod. I glanced at Rick, who seemed pleased. With my hard drive slowly overheating from a familiar emotion I only felt around Caroline, I shuddered in anticipation and gave a small laugh.  
“20 percent is all I need!” I told them.  
“FACT: 20 percent does not change the fact that Wheatley has no likeable qualities.” 

Oh… back to square one then, I suppose.   
“Wheat, can’t you think of anything at all that the girl could like about you? She seems to like talkin’ with you, so she must like somethin’ about you!” The Adventure Core turned to me. I shook my lens.  
“I really can’t think of anything… Oh, what was I doing, thinking I stood a chance with her!?” I growled, banging my handle off the table.   
“FACT: Women are attracted to the following; Humour, Physical attractiveness, Eagerness, Caring Personalities, Respectful, Hard workers and Money – however, a combination of all of these has been proven to be scientifically impossible.” Craig offered some things to jog my memory – and then it hit me. It hit me like a tonne of bricks, or the vacuum that took me out into space! Caroline found me amusing!

90 percent of my memory files of her had her laughing at me, or something I said or did. She thought I was funny, that’s why she liked me! Oh, man alive, this was brilliant!   
“She thinks I’m funny!” I shouted, and the two remained silent for a moment.  
“FACT: On its own, that isn’t really a good thing.” Craig said with a sigh. My mood dropped again. I looked away, back towards the wall.  
“If she thinks you are nothin’ but funny, she won’t see you as much of a man, will she?” Rick stated unhelpfully and I cast him a glare. However, I soon settled – maybe he was right.   
“FACT: The 20 percent is still there.” Craig went on.   
“Oh, just leave it, Craig. It doesn’t matter.” I grumbled, and went to roll off the table. “I’ve got things I need to do.”   
“FACT: It is better to try than to give up. Then at least Wheatley can say he did.” 

I stopped. Yeah, you know what? What have I got to lose? I can either tell her and be rejected, or never tell her and never know that she would reject me! I can’t decide which is worse, so might as well go ahead and get it over with.  
“You know what, I’m going to tell her how I feel. Wish me luck!” I dived off the table and rolled out into the hallway, quickly followed by Rick.   
“Hold on there, you ain’t goin’ without me, are ya!?” 

“FACT: Chance of success has increased to 30 percent. 40… 50… 60…”

***

The clock read seven pm. I found Caroline in one of her usual habitats; in one of the construction areas doing repairs to injured or old turrets. Each one chirped a ‘Thank you!’ as she worked like a conveyer belt, treating their various injuries as fast as lightning. Sergei stood obediently by her feet, watching everything intently – he narrowed his eye when I entered on my management rail and he sounded an ominous, sing-song “Hello” which drew Caroline’s attention. She looked around and smiled.  
“Hey Wheatley!”   
“Hello! Sorry for intruding!” I gave a nervous laugh as I slid along so I was beside her. My motherboard was already working on overdrive – I was grateful the scientists who made me had taken the time to give me decent, durable parts. I would have passed out from nervousness already otherwise.   
“You know you’re never intruding!” She said, reaching up and patting me on the side. The grin on my face would have been huge if I was a human. She focused back on the turret in front of her.  
“Hello.” It muttered, nervously. Caroline smiled.  
“Don’t worry, you’ll be all better soon,” Then, she slid open its side panels, and found the problem immediately. “Ah, one of your gun barrels is cracked. That could be fatal if you tried to use them.” 

This was one of the reasons I loved her – at first, I had just thought she was the most beautiful human I’d ever laid my eye on – but, as I actually got to know her, I had discovered that she had a beautiful personality as well. She was so unconditionally caring and sweet to the other robots, never asking for anything in return for her help. She would always go slightly out of her way to help one of them in a pinch, regardless of who it was – even a corrupted core like me, although that was a while ago… I think. I haven’t checked my files for any corruption lately. I should do that at some point soon…  
“Hey Wheatley, could you get me the wrench hanging on the wall over there?” She looked up at me with a grateful smile. I nodded and zipped on over, only to stop and blankly stare at the offending tool. 

I didn’t have any hands. How could I have forgotten something as major as that!? How was I going to pick this damn thing up!? She didn’t seem to be aware of my panic, already raking through various drawers for a replacement gun barrel. The top of the wrench was a hook – if I knocked it, it might just hook on to one of my handles. Yeah, I’d try that! Wasn’t the best of my amazing ideas, but it might work! Besides, she wouldn’t have asked me if this wasn’t possible! 

I swung back and forth on the rail, eventually tapping the wrench with my handle. It came away from its place on the wall, but I swung back as it was about to make contact with my handle. The wrench seemed to fall in slow motion as it dawned on me that I had messed up, once again. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the force of my swinging would pull me away from the wrench as it fell.  
“Oh, blast it all!” I growled, shutting my lens over in frustration. I heard Caroline stop. Here it comes, the name-calling, the abuse and the uncalled for statements that every other human always gave me…

She started walking, her footsteps drawing tantalizingly close until finally she knelt down and picked up the wrench. I refused to open my eye to look at her. She placed her warm hand on my side panel, my tense wires relaxed under her gentle touch.   
“Sorry…” I mumbled and she laughed – it was the carefree laugh that I had heard so much and loved.  
“Nah, that was my fault. I thought your rail was closer to the wall than that, I should be the one apologising.” She replied and I shook my optic from side to side fiercely, turning on the rail to face her.  
“You don’t need to apologise, I should have been more than capable of getting that wrench for you, but no! My stupidity makes little old Wheatley mess everything up again!” Perhaps there was a malfunction in my hardware that was causing me to break down like this – it was humiliating. I looked away from her again as the smile left her face. Great, that was my fault as well, wasn’t it? Oh, could this get any worse?  
“Wheatley…” Her hand left my body and moments later I was sitting in her arms. She had manually disconnected me from the management rail. I gazed up at her, just a tad startled.   
“If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will go through its whole life believing that it is stupid,” she quoted her mother, Chell as she carried me back over to the table. She placed me down beside her current patient and set to work on its cracked barrel.  
“You believe you are stupid because you have always been made to do the wrong things – things that disadvantage you and make you seem foolish, when in truth you aren’t.” 

I watched her intently with my lens wide open as she used the wrench to unscrew the barrel and add the new one. Her brow furrowed in concentration while she retightened the bolts and then stood back.  
“There, good as new!” She picked up the turret and placed it on the floor.  
“Thank you!” It sang while it teetered away back to its duties. She picked up her next patient, who had a cracked lens.  
“You aren’t stupid, Wheatley – even if I say it sometimes. One day, you’ll find something you’re really good at, and when that day comes,” She flashed me a huge grin. “Nobody will be able to insult you again.” 

Her words were pretty and all, but how long until that day came? I wasn’t sure if I could handle being useless for another second! She replaced the turret’s lens and sent it chirping out the door. There was one turret left, but after a quick examination, Caroline could find nothing wrong with it. With a confused smile, she asked it;  
“So, why are you here, Little Guy?”  
“My casing is Model Four. I was hoping to upgrade to Model Six.” It replied, Caroline’s grin expanding all the while. This was her favourite part of being Aperture Science’s main mechanic – she loved giving the turrets new paint jobs. Sergei had already been subjected to several case changes and Caroline often hinted that there was still more to come.  
“Did you have any particular style or colour in mind?” She asked, crossing her arms.  
“There are choices?” The turret sounded shocked.  
“Well, since I got here, there are.” She chuckled, and opened up her laptop on a desk across from us.  
“What’s your serial number, Little Guy?”   
“This unit is number 09975310.” It recited. Caroline nodded in response, and for a second there was silence.  
“Hmm, your profile says you like dark, thrilling movies and heavy metal…” she sounded bemused but, if the look on her face spoke the volumes it usually did, she already had a design in mind.   
“That data is affirmative.” It replied.  
“Okay, I have a design that should fit you perfectly,” She took a folder out from underneath the desk and brought it over. The folder opened on a page depicting a drawing she had made herself, featuring a turret with a shiny black case.   
“I know it looks pretty bland, but it’s actually metallic paint – you’ll look amazing in the right light and you’ll be popular in the Stealth-themed testing tracks!” She commented. The little robot leaned over the folder, scanning the drawing with purpose. It looked up at her a moment later.  
“I approve.” It chirped.  
“Excellent!” Was her immediate response. She journeyed over to a line of huge storage cupboards at one end of the room and opened all of them in turn. They were stacked high with neatly organized painted turret cases – but she couldn’t find the right one.  
“Oh, I guess… I must have already given the one I made to another turret,” She turned around with an apologetic smile.  
“Why don’t you just make another? This kind of thing takes you no time at all!” I pointed out.   
“Well…” She glanced at a default turret case, not yet painted. It was all set up, with several bottles of paint spattered around it. “If you’re willing to wait, 09975310.”   
“Of course. Take your time.” It stated and Caroline nodded in delight.  
“Alright, let’s do this!” She smashed her hands together, grinning devilishly. “WHEATLEY!”  
“Oh, uh, yes?” Hearing her call my name in such an excited tone made my circuits flip.   
“Give me a hand with this!” She rushed over and practically threw me back onto the management rail, dragging me by my bottom handle over to her painting station.   
“Slow down, Luv!” I screeched. She let go of me and I had to force myself to a stop. She tied a bandana around her mouth and flicked open another cupboard filled with a clashing variety of coloured cylinders – the spray paint, I presumed. She spent a few seconds searching through them before she finally pulled out the required colour.   
“Got it!” She linked it up to an odd machine with a small hose, and pulled me back.  
“Now, watch what I do, okay?” She instructed and I silently nodded. She lifted up the hose, aimed it at the blank casing and fired away.

The case was drenched black in seconds. I would have gawked if I had had a mouth to do so. She went around and did the other side, before blasting it dry with an industrial-sized heater placed behind it.  
“Now, we’ve gotta do several layers,” She attached the hose to my side panel, and my lens went wide. “You try it!”  
“Oh no Luv, I couldn’t possibly-!”   
“Come on! Think of it as another thing you’ve tried, even if you’re not good at it!” I could tell she was grinning from ear to ear, even from under the bandana.   
“Okay, fine.” 

The hose was attached as external hardware, being Aperture produced. It was simple enough for me to activate, but actually using it, that was a whole other cup of tea! I looked at her longingly, hoping she’d realize the wrong of her ways and change her mind, but she did no such thing. With a mechanical gulp to undo the knots in my wires, I aimed the hose as best as I could, closed my lens and turned it on. 

Mere seconds I heard her say “Alright, that’s enough!” I stopped on command, and upon opening my lens, I was surprised to see a shining black case, now with even more sheen because of the double layer. I hadn’t even misaligned – there was no mess or anything!   
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She said with a cocky smirk and I glared at her.  
“I could have broke something!”  
“You need more faith in yourself!” She laughed. 

It took us an hour to get the case completely ready, including adding the protective coat – I actually did most of the work, while she sat and observed, that same smirk on her face. Each time, there was still no mess. Everything seemed to be going perfect. For the first time in a very long time, I was proud of myself.   
“Hey, this doesn’t look too bad! Could be better, but…” I said with a nervous laugh, and she merely shook her head.  
“Like I said, have faith. This is a fine piece of work you’ve made – and you will continue to make fine pieces of work!” She patted me on the back, and I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. However, I cut myself short – What did she just say!?

“Wait, you mean you want me to do this again!?” I screeched.  
“Yeah, you’re a natural at this! See, I told you – all you had to do was find what you were good at, and now you have!” She pulled me down from the management rail, giving me another of her squeezing hugs that she reserved only for me. Well, I had to admit, the painting was a little fun. 

After drying our handiwork, she brought the new case over to the patiently waiting turret. Sergei had disappeared somewhere, leaving me to plan my (most likely disastrous) confession. As she fitted the turret’s new case and painted its legs delicately with a brush to match, I mumbled away to myself. Caroline, I love you… nope, far too forward, she’d hate me forever. Caroline, I’m sorry, please don’t hate me, but I think I have feelings for you. Nope, not confident enough, I’d put her off… Caroline, I really think I should tell you, but I think I do have some feelings for you, and I’d very much appreciate it if you’d give me a chance… If you don’t want to, that’s fine, I mean- ugh, no! Still not confident enough! That was pathetic! Gibberish! Poppycock! 

“Alright, all done!” She took a small mirror out of her pocket, and allowed the turret to view itself. It narrowed its eye and made an odd gurgling sound.  
“I love it!” It squeaked and I found myself admiring the way in which Caroline’s face brightened upon hearing the words.   
“I’m glad you like it! We’re all done here!” She said cheerily, picking up the turret with its glossy new coat and placing it on the floor.  
“Thank you!” It chirped in the usual fashion before bouncing out of the room, leaving Caroline and I alone. I coughed and she glanced at me.  
“I’m glad I can be of use to this place…” She said wistfully, before moving to clean the room up.  
“W-Wait a second, Luv!” I gasped and she stopped, looking back at me with a smile.  
“Yeah?”   
“I-I wanted to tell you something,” I began, the words were rushing out like vomit. “And no matter how badly I mess this up I don’t want you to hate me, because I couldn’t stand that, I really couldn’t-”  
“Wheatley,” She said sternly but with kindness, walking over and placing that same warm hand on my side panel. “Calm your British tits. Now, when you’re ready, spit it out. GLaDOS will be switching off the lights soon.”   
“I… I just wanted to tell you that I-I-I… I…” My inner workings seemed to freeze and I couldn’t get the words out. Her smile faded once again, making a horrible feeling wash over me like a tidal wave.  
“If something’s wrong, you can tell me, Wheatley… are you having homicidal thoughts about the other cores again?”   
“N-NO, It’s not that! It isn’t! I just need to tell you that I… I have…” Once again, I suffered from a system failure and could get out no words.   
“You have…?” She prompted.  
“Attention: Lights out in five minutes. Everybody who has not done so please retire to their bedrooms for the night, or you will be subjected to the Party Escort Bot and he is not in a pleasant mood right now.”   
“There’s GLaDOS,” Caroline commented, giving my side a rub.  
“Please hold on! I can say this!” I begged. She held fast, but looked really worried. She hated walking through the facility in the dark – she was convinced that GLaDOS’ shenanigans had left the place haunted. I needed to be a little faster here, if I could…

“Listen, Caroline – I really, really like you… In fact, I might even have… feelings for you…” The second the look on her face switched to surprise, my circuits overheated and I did everything possible to make what I had just said sound less odd.  
“I mean, I know how horrible that sounds, but I guess I just can’t help it! I mean you’re really adorable and lovely and you’re the only one who doesn’t treat me like dirt, you know and you’ve been a fantastic friend to me – it just means a lot, and I’m sorry if that’s scared you, Luv…” 

As my ranting drew to a close, I nervously looked to her to see her reaction. She still looked shocked, but she hadn’t moved her hand. I thought I saw her mouth twitch upwards into a smile for a moment, but surely I imagined that. Then, in the next instance, she gave me a kiss on the lens – the equivalent of a mouth – and my circuits fried. The last thing I saw was her fretting over the smoke wafting from my body, before I passed out. Ahh… it was all worth it, just for that kiss…

***

As Caroline strutted through the darkened hallways with a malfunctioned Wheatley in her arms, she kept glancing down at him with some concern.   
“I hope I didn’t hurt him…” She mumbled. What was he thinking, having a crush on her? While she was surprisingly pleased at the news, she knew it would never work out between them. She didn’t like him like that… enough for her to want to take it anywhere. Besides, he was in the grand scale of things, a metal ball while she was most certainly not. How would a relationship with him even work physically? Wait a second, why was she even thinking about that!?

She had no idea where he normally entered sleep mode for the night, so she took him into her room and set him up on the management rail in there, before retiring to bed herself. As she drifted off, she hoped that Wheatley wouldn’t remember anything when he woke up. That would be awkward as hell to explain, especially if he blurted it out to GLaDOS.


	12. I'm Flying!

GLaDOS, over the past few days, had been infected by a disease which only claimed the greatest and the most psychopathic of minds - boredom. She could feel it gnawing at her circuits like a hungry, insane rat – it reminded her much of the Testing Euphoria, but worse and more irritating. Despite the countless numbers of test chambers that she produced every day and the small group of suitable test subjects she had perform them, she was bored – bored of just sitting there watching them place a cube on a button, or accidentally fall onto a pool of repulsion gel, or get angry at each other and try to knock one another into an acid pit. Despite the fact that it was what she was programmed for, she found herself tiring a little more of testing with each day that passed. 

Then, one day, she calculated a thought. What if the testing is boring because it always stays relatively the same? Yes, the layout of the chambers changes, the devices at the test subject’s disposal are moved around and switched – but, looking at the grand scheme of things, every test available has been used to some degree before. Even the test subjects themselves were starting to notice the similarities between test chambers – Chell had a particular eye for it, often commenting upon walking in to a chamber “This one again?” to which GLaDOS would have to frustratingly respond that it was in fact a different test, but she didn’t expect a brain damaged half-mute lunatic to be able to realize that.

So, if that was the source of the problem – that the tests were too repetitive – what could she do to change them, for the benefit of science? Create new gels? Alter the cubes slightly? Invent a new turret? Reinstate the defunct Rocket Turrets? There were so many possibilities, including ones she hadn’t even thought up yet. However, it certainly did not take her long to have quite a formidable list of changes she could make. She would start off small, she decided – as of today, daily changes would be made to the testing tracks as she designed new chambers. The test subjects would be slowly ushered into these changes, as not to affect their testing ability. First, she decided to announce to the facility that things would be a little different from now on.

***

Caroline and Eric were playing cards in the Cafeteria while Vic and Rosie were trying to scrounge up lunch in the kitchen. At first, they hadn’t even blinked when GLaDOS began speaking.  
“Attention all Test Subjects: I have some important information to share with you all,” She began, and Eric’s ears pricked like a dog’s. Caroline glanced at GLaDOS’ camera, curious. “Numerous changes will be introduced to the testing chambers commencing tomorrow at 0400 hours. However, as to not disturb the flow of testing, only one of these numerous changes shall be introduced a day, over the course of thirty Aperture Science working days. Aperture Science Standard Testing Protocol prohibits me from revealing the details of these changes, however it does instruct me to remind you that none of these changes should be lethal in any way.”  
“LIAR!” Eric screeched at the camera and grinned as Caroline replied with a loud, agonizing laugh, which caused her to choke on the gum she was chewing. Vic banged her head on the fridge accidentally while she was laughing, and Rosie merely shook her head. The camera spun around to look Eric right in the eyes. If it had been a turret, he’d be dead, that much he knew – but nothing made his day more than teasing the giant monstrosity that had tried to kill him once and was now trying to stop him having any sort of relationship with its granddaughter.   
“The Enrichment Centre would like to remind you that talking back to and/or insulting Aperture Science personnel, regardless of their gender, assigned tasks or origins, is strictly against Company Policy and you will be permanently redacted from further testing,” She recited like she was reading it right off of a textbook page. However, her usual personality was quick to resurface. “In words you might understand: I’ll kill you, Grandchild-stealer.” 

***

She planned on using Eric first for every single new amendment to the tracks, mainly because if her changes were actually lethal she wanted him to be the one to die. She was quite nervous about how much time he spent with her granddaughter, Caroline. The time they did spend together was normally in the areas of the facility where her cameras either didn’t reach or still weren’t repaired after her initial destruction forty years ago. It unsettled her dearly – not being able to see what her female technical grandchild was doing with a disgusting male creature thing nearly fried her circuits. 

That’s why, the next morning, she used some floor panels to tip him out of bed and then roll him right to the elevator. He was still half asleep and it took her violently jolting the elevator and him banging his head against the glass to wake him up completely. Her actions were immediately cursed and she had to forcibly hold back her delighted chuckle, satisfied with his violent response. Upon the elevator’s arrival he passed through the Emancipation Grill without complaint but was immediately taken aback by the shocking appearance of the test chamber – it was unlike anything he had ever seen before, at least constructed by GLaDOS. He had heard from Chell and GLaDOS what Wheatley’s test chambers had looked like, and he had often imagined them looking something like this. 

He was standing in a gargantuan, long chamber completely lacking Portal Surfaces and with no standing platforms besides the one he was currently on. Even the exit door, which he could see to one corner of the odd chamber, completely lacked any kind of platform under it. Looking over the edge of the platform, all he could see was a bottomless pit, with several bits of the facility twisting and moving far below – he could see a whole line of test chambers being shifted into a different position by the AI. Whatever she had planned, it was huge. He looked to the camera.  
“How do you expect me to complete this,” He questioned. “And without my boots?” He was expecting the response he received.  
“I’m not. To be honest I’m really hoping that you fall to your death.”   
“Well then, I’ll just need to defy the laws of physics to prove you wrong.” He concluded with a devilish smirk, one that made the supercomputer’s circuits overheat in anger. She half considered just propelling him into the pit with a conveniently placed movable panel, but that wouldn’t yield any usable results, she realised. She supposed she could help him along – if it meant his death. It was time to test out the first of her newest inventions.

The familiar noise of the cube dispenser grabbed his attention. That was the first time he noticed that there was one right above his head – BONK! – and moments later he was on the floor after receiving a cube to the face, the said cube now teetering dangerously over the edge of the platform. She has it out for me, he mumbled internally, before remembering that cubes were usually important and struggling against the pain in his head to grab the cube before his luck got worse and it fell.

Unfortunately, his fingers gingerly brushed the side of the vital apparatus – before it finally slipped and fell. He watched it, horrified, as it dropped into the dark abyss of the salt mines far below. He heard it disintegrate some way down and made a feeble attempt to swallow the dry lump in his throat.  
“Oh, that’s too bad. I guess I’ll just have to give you another. Don’t drop it this time.” If he didn’t know any better, he would say that GLaDOS sounded bored. Then, he held back his squeal of pain as another cube landed harshly on his back, causing it to crack. 

Some struggling against the heavy apparatus later, he finally had the cube sitting calmly in front of him. However, he was lacking a Portal Gun and his Long Fall Boots, no thanks to GLaDOS. There was no way for him to complete the test at all, not without the required equipment. And so, he sat and stared at the cube, hoping that GLaDOS would maybe help him out if he waited a few hours.  
“Please don’t break that one – I only have a couple of this particular cube, and they were rather difficult to put together…” She drawled, and he cast a glance at the camera.  
“I thought you had thousands of these cubes?” He questioned, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.  
“Not these ones. These ones are different from the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cubes. Therefore, don’t break them.”  
“But what do I do with it?” He questioned.  
“If you’re so cunning that you think you can attempt to put your dirty human hands all over my granddaughter while you are in Test Chamber 02, which I can still see into by the way, then you are clearly smart enough to work it out yourself.” She spat, and the speakers went dead. Eric felt his heart leap in fear. So that’s what this is about! 

He refocused on the cube, as if he expected it to grow wings and then fly off. There must be a trick to this – there always was. GLaDOS could make a pretty wicked test – she could design a test especially to kill you, or a test designed to be difficult enough that it would take you days to complete – but one thing that GLaDOS could not do was make a test impossible. Every test of hers had a solution. 

He risked looking away from the cube for a moment to examine the area again – there was still nothing of use, and he hadn’t missed anything. He looked back to the cube – saw that it had in fact grown wings – and then looked back to the testing chamber. Still nothing different. He looked back to the cube. It was now fluttering pleasantly in front of his face. He looked back to the camera and shrugged. GLaDOS did not respond. He looked back to the cube – it was flying!? 

He leaped onto the cube as it attempted to fly away from him, scrabbling for a decent handhold. His legs dangled uselessly over the edge of the cube, and he could swear that somewhere over the sound of his panicked gasping that he could hear the twisted supercomputer cackling hysterically.   
“Now would be a good time to let go of the cube and fall to your death. It will save me the trouble of having to kill you later.” Her voice just reached him over the scrambled, confused chaos rampaging inside of his head like several voices talking at once.  
“No chance, you old hag!” He screamed in response, and with all the strength he could muster he scrambled onto the top of the cube, sitting down and draping his legs in between its little mechanical wings. They were making quite good progress across the chamber now – the exit door was open, awaiting them. Looking down at the unusual flying cube that GLaDOS had decided to create for whatever reason, he grinned and gave it an affectionate pat on the side.

With him still perched on its top, it fluttered through the exit door and landed on the ground, allowing Eric to dismount. Much to his surprise, he turned back around to find the wings gone like they had never been there.  
“What the hell was that supposed to be, GLaDOS?” He looked to a camera blinking away at him beside the elevator.  
“That was my attempt at trying something new,” She admitted. “Was it a failure?”  
“It was certainly…” He was lost for words. With a grin, he scooped the cube up into his arms and strutted towards the elevator. “Odd.”  
“You were not supposed to enjoy it. It was meant to kill you.” She grumbled, but he simply ignored her. He had grown quite fond of his cube – in fact, he was so fond of it that he was just going to use it to complete every other test she had planned for him today.

And that was what he did. 

GLaDOS had, of course, been fighting an internal battle about whether or not she should incinerate the cube to prevent him from ‘cheating’ – unfortunately, the cube was a precious piece of testing apparatus and she only had one other of them. Even if this new piece of equipment had proven to be something of a disaster. 

Well, she needn’t worry. There would be plenty other opportunities to kill the pesky male. She tried to ignore the strange, simulated pain throbbing in the back of her core and continued with her new inventions.


	13. The Death of Dougary Rattmann

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid confusion, this chapter takes place seven years before the story and follows good ol' Doug Rattmann. It's to provide some background on what's coming. Knock yourself out!

“You’re throwing your life away, you know.” He heard the Companion Cube, with its surprisingly feminine voice mutter from its place on his back.  
“You think I don’t know that?” He responded hoarsely and the cube did not reply. He knew treading so close to GLaDOS’ chamber, especially at this particular time was suicide. He’d learned the signs of a malfunction in the supercomputer’s system and it was exactly when he’d spotted these signs that he would (usually) retreat into the bowels of the facility and hide out in the vast expanse of springs that was keeping the facility from plummeting through the earth. However, this time, something had stopped him from doing that. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that the last time he had taken his pills was three months ago, or if he himself was having a serious malfunction. Either way, he felt no fear – even as a loud growl emitted from the computer’s high-walled cylinder of a chamber and a test chamber nearby collided with another, shaking the facility to its very core and sending a few poorly placed maintenance walkways into the not-so-bottomless pit below. 

GLaDOS’ glitches in her programming were luckily few and far between. They tended to occur only once every six months, and only for periods of two to six hours, as during this time was when her self-repair program usually got to work and fixed her right up. It was like her version of a mental breakdown – she was reduced to nothing more than a snivelling animal with more power than it could control, and that caused accidents. BIG accidents.

Currently, GLaDOS had been ‘ill’ for about an hour. He had at most seven hours to kill, and he felt no need to spend them running from Rocket Turrets and jumping between floors as she unwittingly tore them apart. He’d much rather see for himself how she acted in this cataclysmic state, but he also wanted to try and find out what caused her primitive episodes and if he could help her – which was why he was on his way there. These episodes were not supposed to happen, and they hadn’t happened at all up until the freedom of Chell and the banishing of the Intelligence Dampening Core to space. 

He didn’t have a portal gun so when he reached the end of the walkway with still no clear way to GLaDOS in sight, he sighed and slumped to the ground, his hand collapsing limply upon the safety rail.  
“Hey, look.” The Companion Cube suddenly spoke up and he glanced up to catch sight of an Excursion Funnel – leading straight to the chamber doors! The poor deranged computer must have made it appear by mistake, not that he was complaining. He got to his feet with a grin, leaped over the safety rails and just made contact with the funnel, sighing in relief as it pulled him into its centre. He drifted calmly along, the noise of the chaos outside blocked out by the soothing buzz of the funnel’s energy. It was an incredibly brief respite from the hell he’d had to call home for most of his life. To think he had started as an intern here at age seventeen, and now he was pushing sixty. 

Upon realization that he was now above a platform, he swam down and out of the funnel, landing with a small, quiet thump on the ground below (he’d sacrificed his shoes for long fall boots some time ago). As early as this morning, this platform had been a room which was connected to the main facility through an enclosed walkway, which for whatever reason was now missing. If something went wrong in the chamber, he noted, he would have no chance of escape. Even if this does kill me, he thought, would that be such a bad thing? He was becoming so very tired of his current existence – after all, he’d done what he had needed to. He had set Chell loose to defeat GLaDOS and then rescued her again when his plan backfired. Now, he had seen her go free and GLaDOS was no longer a threat to humans - seemingly. He had no reason to live anymore. It was time to leave this place behind, but not before fixing GLaDOS – after all, she was formerly a friend of his. He would feel bad if he left this place without doing something for her. 

“Please be careful in there.” The Cube’s usually strong and precise voice wavered. He reached behind him and patted it on the side affectionately before punching his details into the lock to the chamber doors. He watched as a light beep signalled his information as being valid and the doors, stiff and dusty from years of neglect, slid back and he stepped inside.

Once safely within the confines of the Red Phone room, Doug untied the Cube from his back and placed it on the ground.  
“You’re leaving me here?” It inquired, curiously. The good thing about the Companion Cubes was their ability to not get offended. He nodded.  
“This is my responsibility, it wouldn’t feel right to get you involved.” He told it, before brushing his fingers over its smooth surface one more time. When it didn’t say anything, he turned around to face the main chamber of GLaDOS. 

The deranged computer appeared to have knocked out her own lights – he could see nothing within the spacious chamber at all, but he knew she was alive and well – her components were whirring on overdrive, doing their best to restore her to order. However, he knew he had some time before that happened, which also meant that he had time to get to work. First of all, he restored power to the lights, which cast the almighty AI suspended from the ceiling in a dim glow. Next, he tried to perform an emergency shutdown, but found that GLaDOS had decided this function was no longer needed some time in the past and had disabled it. He gulped. A manual repair job was his only option. Trying to stay on would be like riding a bull in a rodeo, and trying to stay alive would be a whole other kettle of fish. 

He slipped into the chamber as quietly as the automatic doors and the long fall boots would allow, relieved to see that she didn’t notice him. He stopped for a moment to assess her condition, and what he saw worried him dearly.

The poor girl was in a bad, almost dizzy way. Her optic, now a deep crimson red, flashed on and off repeatedly. Every so often her massive chassis gave a fearsome jerk, as if she was shuddering from the cold. Through the speakers GLaDOS used to communicate, he could instead hear very faint, pain-filled growls like those from a desperate, hungry predator. They appeared to be in sync with the shuddering movements of her chassis – it was like watching a human chest attempt rise and fall when they couldn’t breathe. With every intake he heard, she raised slightly, and then as she exhaled her metal body shuddered back down to a low height. It was oddly fascinating to watch. 

He already knew from tests with other Personality Constructs what these symptoms meant, but he had never expected to see them coming from the omnipotent computer known as GLaDOS. She had both a malfunction and a virus! Phenomenal! Who would have thought that she could succumb to two somethings that were so petty! 

In the next instance the growl in her mechanical throat rose to an alarming volume. He thought he’d been seen, mentally cursing himself for spacing out, but luckily her attention was still directed elsewhere. Suddenly, with a roar that sounded a little like an agonized scream, she threw her whole several-tonne body against the side of the chamber, causing the room to vibrate and the panels lining the wall to shake. The ones GLaDOS had smashed into were bent and useless now, not that she seemed to care. He had never seen her act like this before, but it was definitely not normal, even for just a small malfunction or a virus. He had a hunch that something else could have been involved too, but what, he wasn’t sure.

“She’s going to see you if you don’t hide!” His beloved Cube called to him and he gave a silent nod. He ducked behind one of the panels which had malfunctioned to observe her.

However he was not there for long. From his semi-safe recluse, he decided that not even GLaDOS deserved to be in this much pain that it was actually driving her crazy. He needed to fix her, bring her back to her old self – if she was left to rampage much longer, the whole facility would come down on top of them. While that normally wouldn’t have bothered him much, for some reason he felt that he couldn’t die knowing he’d allowed that to happen. So, with a deep intake of breath to steel himself, he crawled out of the small space and strode out with confidence that surprised even himself into the chamber. 

“Caroline!” His voice rang out loud and clear, echoing off of the shimmering tiles. Her entire body froze, and she fell silent. He recognized the sound of a metal claw descending and dived out of the way, feeling the vibration of the claw smashing into the ground right where he had just been standing. She was trying to kill him already? He nearly smirked. It’s a new record!

Her strange, unnatural snarling reached a new level of hostility, making her sound like a tiger with anger issues and a chest infection. She slowly turned to face him, her red optic just managing to hold focus on him – and upon registering who he was, she made what might as well have been a mangled shout and reared up – some sort of attempt to get away from him? That was curious. She wasn’t one for fear.  
“Yeah, it’s me – the one that got away,” He wasn’t sure if he said that to taunt her or state a fact. “Not feeling too great, huh?”

She narrowed her oddly coloured optic in response, her body resuming its earlier pattern of rise and shudder. Now, her malfunction-induced anger was most certainly directed at him. He was sitting on a giant box of dynamite, and one wrong move or word would be the matches that set them alight. He stood perfectly still, being sure not to break eye contact or drop his guard. With the way she was right now, if he relaxed for even a moment it would cost him his life – and that would be a waste, he hadn’t even repaired her yet. She tried to say something but her words came out like jumbled coding. He couldn’t understand it, but didn’t really have to – he could guess she was telling him to fuck off, or die in a well, or choke on a well-placed turkey leg, or something else more her style.  
“I’m going to fix you!” He proclaimed boldly, shocking himself. She regarded him silently for a few more moments as he waited for his redemption. However, she made no move, and his death never came. Seeing that it was safe to continue, he took a few steps towards her, causing her to push herself as far away from him as she could. He caught at the corners of his eyes countless metal arms lower from the ceiling, their deadly claws aimed right at him. She was ready to kill him, and he was ready to die – but not quite yet.  
“I know this is going to sound like one hell of a request,” He stammered. “But I need you to calm down, Caroline, and let me work.” 

She managed to push herself so far back that her white casing touched the panels lining the chamber. She did a series of jerky head movements, perhaps meant to signal panic or refusal, but he had to do this. If he didn’t, she would destroy herself. He admittedly didn’t want to see that happen to his old colleague, not after she’d went so far to redeem herself in the past, even after the massacre she’d caused forty years ago – she may have been GLaDOS, but she was also Caroline and if he could appeal to that side of her and calm her down, he could fix her without a problem. That was why he’d made the risky decision to call her by that name, and that was probably also why she’d reacted so badly.  
“Caroline, please – what if Chell could see you now?” Her entire system, not just her body, seemed to freeze at the name. Bingo. He’d struck the perfect chord.  
“Please, Caroline, imagine if she came back down here and saw you like this, or you injured her, or worse – this problem won’t get better if you ignore it and just let it happen. You are putting yourself, the facility and all of your constructs at risk by letting this go on. Please, let me help you.” 

She relaxed ever so slightly, trying to regulate her odd body movements and lower herself closer to him. Good, she understood. This malfunction must have seriously messed up her thought processers if she had thought he meant – or could even inflict – any harm. Had she been herself, he would have been trapped and forced into a testing track by now. Or dead. He edged closer to her, watching as her eye narrowed even more in boundless fear with each step he took. He held up his hands reassuringly, and more chaotic jargon sounded over the speakers. He couldn’t believe it – Caroline had always been timid and shy, much like himself. He was seeing more of Caroline in GLaDOS right now than anybody else ever had.  
“It’s okay,” He said in a hushed tone, finding himself stretching out his hands towards her. She made a small jerk back at the movement, and the metal hands poised to tear him apart jutted closer to him as a warning. He ignored them, refusing to break eye contact with that glowing lens. “I’m not going to hurt you – you know I couldn’t anyway, right?”

Finally, she allowed him the honour of getting close enough to touch her – his fingers gently brushed the surface of her white casing, before she drew back again. In that single touch, where he felt the intense warmth of her system, it hit him like a punch in the face how magnificent she was. She was the pinnacle of Aperture Science engineering, the result of decades of trial and error, a work of art in the eyes of any scientist or engineer, including himself. He felt his chest swell with pride that he had worked for the company that had brought her into the world – but then he realized how urgent it was that she was fixed. He reached out and placed his hand flat against her casing, keeping his hand there as reassurance as he walked to the side of her. Then, he gripped one of her neck suspensions and hauled himself up onto her back, which gave her some cause for alarm. She reared up immediately, distressed that she couldn’t see what he was doing. He actually did smile this time, before reaching over and patting her hood.  
“It’s alright, this is just part of the process. Calm down.” Then, he reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a small, touchscreen device. It was like a phone, except it only worked within Aperture locations and allowed access to most of the facility’s computers to repair them etc., but only via cable. He was lucky his trusty one still worked – it had only ever needed one repair job since GLaDOS took over the facility, and that was because he accidentally dropped it in a puddle. He plugged the wire into a socket in the back of GLaDOS’ head, and several options came up on screen – he pressed the one that said ‘System Scan’ instinctively. Now, he could find the problem.

"Initiating scan…  
Add. Core Socket 1: Functional. Empty.  
Add. Core Socket 2: Functional. Empty.  
Add. Core Socket 3: Functional. Empty.  
Add. Core Socket 4: Functional. Empty.  
Main Core Socket: Functional. Core Attached.  
Self-repair System: Functional. Running. (Thank God.)  
GLaDOS Operating System: Functional. (Huh, so that wasn’t the problem.)  
Neurotoxin Control Centre: Functional. (Ack…)  
CAROLINE.exe: ERROR. (Well, that’s a given.)  
DM Module: ERROR." (Oh? Decision-making module… got’cha!)

He retrieved the details of the DM Module and discovered it was controlled by a small green chip inside her core. Obviously, it affected her ability to calculate things and make decisions based on results, which explained why she decided Rattmann was a threat when she knew full well he wasn’t. She shifted a little again, more computerised chaos sounding from the speakers.  
“I’ve found the problem. You might feel a few pinpricks…” He warned her, tracing down her suspension and locating a small flap on the back of her core. He urged it open, located the small green chip (which ne noted was smoking and sparking all over the place), and moved to dislodge it. 

Suddenly, the facility rocked like it had just been struck by a bomb. He had no doubt that GLaDOS had broken something else in her damaged haze – he had to work quickly. Something caught his eye. He looked up and immediately wished he hadn’t.

His Companion Cube had been knocked out of the Red Phone room and was now falling at breakneck speed towards the chamber floor.  
“I’m sorry!” It cried, it knew what was about to happen. Rattmann looked down at the chip, realized he didn’t have enough time to change it before the Cube caught GLaDOS’ attention and sighed.  
“Shit.”

The Cube made the most deafening clang he’d ever had the misfortune of hearing, and GLaDOS darted to look at the offending object, promptly incinerating it. He thought he heard it scream and felt his very soul sink, holding in an objective cry. The enraged growls of GLaDOS had returned. One of the hands, which had slowly been withdrawing a moment ago, shot towards him and gripped him around the chest. The air was knocked from his lungs and he was hoisted from her back, wrenched violently so he was hanging in front of her face. Her red optic, now glowing stronger than before, narrowed at him and an anguished scream erupted from the speakers – what terrified him most about it was just how much like a human it sounded. Before he knew it, the wind was rushing past his ears and making his eyes water as GLaDOS lifted him up high, almost to the ceiling of the chamber, and then brought him crashing back down again – the pain from the impact was excruciating, and he felt a few bones snap. She tugged him back up, watching his every move with terror, and then struck him back to the floor. Each and every time something else broke –she hoisted him up once more and his limbs were shattered, his nose bent, his ribs broken and heart pounding so much that it hurt. This is it, he thought. I’m going to die. 

With one final scream, she crushed him against the floor of the chamber and left him there, withdrawing all the mechanical arms and painfully panting above him, like the exertion had actually tired her. He merely looked at her with his blurred eyes, trying to ignore the pain threatening to take him.  
“G-Goddammit, Caroline,” He gasped through a bleeding grin. “I told you to stay calm.” 

She froze then. Her optic flashed off, and he felt a wave of panic rush over him – did her systems just fail!? Would she restart!? Or was that her gone for good, just like him!? Suddenly, he was relieved to see the optic return, a healthy yellow colour.  
“What…?” She gasped in a hushed voice, looking around at the small level of chaos she had caused in the chamber. Then, her optic landed back on him.  
“…Dougary Rattmann?” Her voice was teeming with more emotion than he had ever heard from the AI.  
“Yeah…” He tried to sit up, but found the ordeal too painful.  
“Did I do this to you?” Her voice turned harsh, but it didn’t seem directed at him.  
“Yeah… but don’t worry about it… you weren’t yourself.” He gasped.  
“So there is something wrong with me after all,” She muttered. “I knew my body would start to fail me one day. I didn’t think it would be so pathetically soon.” 

He was unable to reply. In fact, it was taking all of his energy just to hang on to life. She observed him quietly for a second, before speaking once more;  
“For what it’s worth, if anything… I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t… apologise…” He didn’t want to die with her doing something else unusual – and apologising definitely was unusual, at least coming from her.  
“Well, if you are planning on dying at some point today, don’t bleed out all over my chamber. It’s just more mess for Blue and Orange to clean up.” Her cold demeanour returned, and he let his head fall back against the cold steel that made the floor. Yes, ma’am…

She watched him calmly for a few minutes, secretly hoping that he would just get up and announce it was all a joke, before running back into hiding and leading her on a wild goose chase like he had for all of those years – but he did not. He was dead. She had all the proof she needed when blood that had been pooling in his mouth began to spill over the side, dripping onto the floor.  
“What did I say about bleeding out?” She scolded him, although she didn’t know why. He was dead. What was the point in wasting her words? She was overwhelmed by a very sudden feeling of loneliness – he was all she had – the last human in Aperture, besides those still in stasis. She had killed him – what on earth had she been thinking? Trying to push the feelings from her mind, she summoned Atlas and P-Body to assist with clean-up. She had no doubt the facility would need fixing up too – such a bother.

Once they had come and gone to retrieve the body, GLaDOS tried to settle her for some reason frayed and tense circuits. Her optic could not leave the spot where Rattmann had once been lying. She could swear she could still see some blood there, but decided her Operating System was just trying to play tricks on her. She turned away from the spot just in case, and sighed with an emotion she didn’t fully understand.  
“I’m a monster…”


	14. DM Module: ERROR

Mom and I had noticed it immediately – the changes in GLaDOS’ behaviour, the dropping of her mood, the weird huskiness of her voice – something was wrong with her, and when something went wrong with GLaDOS, it was only a matter of time until disaster struck WITH EVERYTHING ELSE.

I stood in the Red Phone room for some time, watching her, searching for any symptom of anything. Her yellow optic flickered threateningly, and every so often she would painfully shift and give a badly muted groan. Something was hurting her. She kept insisting that she was fine and tried to distract herself with the testing of Atlas and P-Body, but it did bother me that she didn’t want me getting too close. Every time I had tried to approach, she would shoot a panicked “Get back!” in my direction. Was something going to happen? Did she know about it? Why wouldn’t she tell me, or even mom? I stepped away from the wall, keeping my arms crossed, glaring at her with stern eyes.   
“GLaDOS, it’s obvious you’re hurt.” I pointed out and she shook her head.  
“I’m fine, really.”

Now I know where mom and I get our stubbornness from…  
“I’m gonna go get mom, we’re gonna help you, okay?” I told her.  
“N-No, don’t…!” She fretted, looking suddenly up at me. A jolt of electricity shot through her body, she writhed for a moment and she fell limp.  
“Okay, now I’m definitely getting mom.” I turned around to run away, but I thought I heard her desperately cry out something.  
“No, I don’t want to hurt you…!” 

She was downstairs in her bedroom, reading an old pamphlet on Employee Safety. She really didn’t have much to do when not testing.  
“Mom!” I rushed into the room and she shot up immediately – if there was one thing that was good about her traumatic past, it was the fact she couldn’t ever drop her guard. She was always on edge, prepared for trouble. At a time like this I was glad for it.  
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was wracked with worry but she remained in control of it. Although barely.  
“Right, don’t panic immediately, it might not be serious…” I warned her. “…but whatever’s wrong with Granny is getting worse.”

Her expression darkened, eyes going wide in instinctive fear.   
“Where are the others?” she demanded suddenly, startling me.  
“I don’t know!”   
“Gather everyone, get in the service elevator and take it down into the old salt mines. You’ll be safe there.” She zipped up her jumpsuit and slid past me, running back the way I had come, up the stairs.  
“What, why!?” I called after her and she cast back at me a commanding glare.  
“Just do it!”

***

What Caroline had told me was serious cause for alarm. When we woke up this morning and found GLaDOS hanging limply, in no mood for conversation, I had assumed she was just depressive for whatever reason and decided that just leaving her alone was the best option. However, Caroline had sneaked back in and kept an eye on her. Now, I was glad she did. If this was the problem I had a hunch it was, then we were in MAJOR shit.

I entered the chamber, where GLaDOS was squirming amongst an electrical thunderstorm emitting from her own body. When it passed and she collapsed again, I didn’t dare get close. The change could happen at any time. She’d shrunken the chamber down a little so she was more enclosed – the panels on either side of her were badly bruised, some of them were bent so much out of shape that their mechanical arms had stopped responding to her commands, having received one too many bumps.  
“GLaDOS.” I let her know I was there. Her attempt to look up was thwarted by another painful jolt.  
“…Chell.” She responded, her computerised voice leathery with unrest.  
“It’s acting up again, isn’t it? That thing you told me about?” I questioned.  
“The DM Module is once again unstable.” She confirmed. I nodded solemnly.  
“Are the others safe?” She asked, surprising me. Since when did she care about anybody but my daughter?  
“Hopefully, they should be on their way down to the old Aperture. Your network doesn’t reach there…” Then, a wave of panic rushed through me when I realized I didn’t hold much stock in my own words. “…Right?”   
“As long as they get out of the elevator at some point soon, they should remain alive. Hopefully.” She replied. I guess that was as good an answer as I was going to get.   
“How long do you think you have?” I knew that I shouldn’t have asked.  
“I-I can’t say,” her voice suddenly dropped in pitch and tempo for a moment and I thought I had lost her. However, she shook her core rapidly as if clearing her thoughts, and her voice returned to normal. “But not long. I suggest you get out of here, unless if you have a death wish.”

At this I nearly smirked.  
“What kind of Test Subject do you take me for?”  
“…You’re not planning to murder me again, are you?” Her optic flexed in surprise. “I thought we surpassed that stage in our relationship.”   
“No, of course not,” I chuckled. “But I will be putting up a fight.”  
“Hm,” she responded quietly. “I would expect no less of the half-mute lunatic fatso.” Another electric shock irked her mechanical form and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.  
“Get out of here!” she suddenly pleaded in a wavering, pixelated voice, but I would do no such thing. I had been through too much with this psychopathic supercomputer to just abandon her now. I backed away as much as I would dare and her system suddenly kicked into overdrive and vicious static played through her speakers with some sort of yelp mixed throughout. She flailed around painfully, accidentally bashing the sides of the chamber yet again, trying to dodge the violent flashes of electricity that scarred her white hide and sliced through her wires like hot knives through butter. I was far enough away that she couldn’t hurt me during her episode, but in a few moments I was not so sure.

With one final body spasm, she collapsed forward, her yellow optic vanishing like the extinguishing flame of a candle. For what seemed like an age there was silence – I could hear the very faint sound of her hard drive attempting to restart somewhere above her. It made one whirr, stopped. Another, then stopped. One more whirr and this time it kept going, picking up speed. I sighed in relief as the rest of her parts rumbled to life and her optic flashed on. The fact that the optic was a bright, ominous red never even occurred to me at first.   
“I thought we’d lost you.” I commented, expecting a snide remark about my weight or jumpsuit, but nothing came. She lifted herself up as high as she could manage with her shaking chassis and stared down upon me with her judging red eye. I wondered at first if it was a start-up error that had changed her optic, but it seemed to be more than that. She was acting differently – her body gently rose and shuddered as it fell, like she was a human trying to breathe but something was choking her.

Having her wordlessly stare down at me, her body functions clearly hostile, was the most threatening situation I had ever been in. I hadn’t even been this frightened of her when I had been required to ‘murder’ her the first time. Her behaviour was off, primitive and surprisingly human – it seemed like she was so angry that she could barely hold herself back. 

I had never seen her like this before, ever. As a result I couldn’t decide what she was planning, what actions she’d take next – which so far seemed to be nothing. She was regarding me like I was some sort of alien, tilting her head slightly to different angles every few minutes. It was like she couldn’t decide – wait a minute… DM Module…

DM – Decision Making!?

“Oh, SHIT!” My first thought was to leap out of the way as with a strange scream, she attempted to swipe me with one of her maintenance claws. Bounding across the chamber towards her, I grabbed hold of one of her wires and hoisted myself up onto her back. The scream she emitted as a result left my ears ringing. I had to find this DM Module – and whatever it was, remove it, before she damaged herself further or worse. For all I knew, she could bring the whole facility down on us.   
“Calm down, GLaDOS! Listen to me!” I called out over the static. A maintenance claw signalled her reply when I just managed to push myself forward enough to dodge it – damn thing would have taken off my head. She shook herself as violently as possible but I already had a handhold. No matter what bizarre and fierce movement she performed, she couldn’t shake me – however, her crazed frolicking was making it very difficult to search for this DM Module. I didn’t even know what the thing looked like, or where exactly to find it. I was expecting a chip of some sort, but that was all I had to go on. 

She suddenly drew to a stop like the ending of a theme park ride, like she was catching her breath and her pained growling presumed in place of the static. I didn’t drop my guard – it wasn’t like her to just give up, malfunctioning or not. There was a little flap on the back of her core engraved with the Aperture logo, above one of her neck suspension tubes. I reached out towards it, hoping for the best and the chaotic rodeo we had landed ourselves in kick-started again, just as frantic as before.   
“Goddammit GLaDOS!!” I screeched, but was forced to hold my mouth. I was gonna be sick…

This time, remarkably, she managed to bash her head off the ceiling and bring several panels down. This seemed to stun her enough for me to wrench the flap open, but of course the kind scientists of Aperture had needed to make this difficult for me – several wires blocked my sight. If the DM Module was in there, I couldn’t see it. She reared up, emitting a strange mechanical roar as I fingered through the wires and attempted to push them out of the way. There, I could see infused into one of her main circuit boards a little smoking green chip, divided in two as the rest had fried away over the years. Gotcha.   
Just hold still, I willed and dug my nails under one side of the Module. If I could just get one piece of the card loose, GLaDOS would automatically shut down and enter Maintenance Mode – a safety precaution of the scientists’ devise for situations just like this. Then, assuming GLaDOS hadn’t knocked it out in her confusion, the auxiliary power would kick in and I could work on locating her spare parts – she had hinted once that she did have such parts, but had neglected to tell me where they were. 

Finally, just as GLaDOS appeared to be gearing up for another hissy fit, the module came away from the rest of the circuit board and she slumped, the static from her speakers fading to a dull crackling. She was not switched off – she was simply disabled, as it were. Maintenance Mode did not deactivate GLaDOS, it simply switched off most of her primary functions so she could not disrupt manual maintenance – I recalled the time that she told Caroline and I of her once reducing a mechanic to tears by insulting his weight during her weekly maintenance check. “He wasn’t nearly as fat a few weeks after I filled his lungs with neurotoxin,” she had commented. 

As I dismounted, slipping the frazzled device into the pocket of my tracksuit, I shot back in delayed fear as she turned to look at me – but said nothing, just watched. It must have been her automatic tracking system – GLaDOS’ ATS allowed her to follow the movements of anybody in the room even if she was decommissioned, not that there would be much she could do if they meant her harm. It was eerie, to say the least – she followed me with her now yellow optic as I walked away, but she wasn’t really thinking about it. She no longer could. The removal of the DM Module had basically taken away her ability to respond to things, as she could no longer decide what action needed to be taken. As GLaDOS’ power finally drained from her unresponsive behaviour and the auxiliary power kicked in, Caroline charged in from beyond the Red Phone room, followed by Rosie, Vic and Eric.   
“Why aren’t you down in the mines?” I asked, relieved to see they were okay but also frustrated with Caroline. When did she ever listen to me?   
“Our elevator broke. We had to use the maintenance ladders to climb our way back up.” She wheezed – it wasn’t like her to be out of breath. Just how many levels had they climbed? I didn’t want to think about it.  
“I guessed you’d done something when the auxiliary power turned on, so I suggested we come straight here,” Rosie chimed in, taking a few steps forward so she was beside Caroline. “What was wrong with her?” 

I took the DM Module from my pocket and held it out for her to see. The thin wires barely connecting both sides of the burnt out chip snapped as she took it from me. Sheepishly, she held both sides of the DM Module up to her eyes, disgruntled for having broken it further.   
“The DM Module is a vital part of GLaDOS’ system. She’s practically a vegetable without it,” She stated. Caroline broke away from the rest of us, jogging over to GLaDOS as if to confirm Rosie’s words for herself. Eric quickly followed her, concern written on his features. “We need to search through the old GLaDOS Project labs for the spare parts and it won’t be easy – that place is huge.”   
“But there is definitely a spare?” I inquired to which she nodded.   
“Oh, there’s several. The DM Modules were made of weaker materials than most of GLaDOS’ other parts, so we had hundreds of the things ordered. I’m actually surprised that it has managed to keep working this long, despite looking like – like this.” She held up the Module, split in two, for me to see again, in awe at the chip’s nimble form.

Catching on to Caroline laughing behind me, I turned around to see her casually poking GLaDOS right in the optic – something that would have got her killed had GLaDOS been in the right frame of mind. Eric fussed over her with a frown, trying to coerce her into stopping, but was getting nowhere fast. I smirked. She just didn’t take him seriously enough – maybe one day, but not now.   
“Come on Caroline, stop! She could be able to remember all of this later!” I warned her. She stopped dead, nervously backing away, before spinning on her heels and darting back towards us with a nervous yelp. Eric scrambled after her, gritting his teeth. He was so determined to put up with her that it was almost impressive. 

The Red Phone room door could be heard sliding open again, which sent all of us into a confused silence. The Maintenance rails didn’t go this far, so it couldn’t have been one of the cores. All of the humans were in this room – there was nobody it could have been. I looked beyond Rosie, who was nervously beginning to look back, when we took in the sight of GLaDOS’ android body mumbling away to herself while typing something up on the computer beside the signature red phone. She withdrew from the computer just as the chamber flooded with the glow of the main lights and the auxiliary ones switched off. She saw us watching her with stunned expressions, stared back like a deer caught in the headlights for a few moments, before withdrawing as close to the door as possible and nervously scratching the back of her neck with a grin.  
“H-Hi there.” She mumbled, just loud enough for us to hear. GLaDOS shouldn’t have been able to link herself up to her android body in her current state and a look back to her chassis confirmed this. Yes, she was still there. That only meant that it wasn’t GLaDOS in the body.  
“GLaDOS?” Rosie finally issued the question that we all wanted an answer to.  
“Uhh, not quite. Think again.” The nervous smile of this stranger inhabiting GLaDOS’ body got wider and wider with every passing moment that we were silent. In fact, her mannerisms were so different to GLaDOS that it was making everybody feel incredibly awkward. I couldn’t really tell why, but she seemed so familiar. Rosie seemed to be thinking a similar thing as she advanced on the stranger with glazed over – hopeful? – eyes. The stranger seemed to relax considerably upon her approach, her awkward smile becoming more daring. 

In the next moment, Rosie inhaled as if holding back tears.  
“You are so great, and I so small,” Her voice was choked with overwhelming emotion.   
“I am nothing, you are all,” The stranger responded, going as if to step forward but hesitating.  
“Being nothing, I can take this way.” Rosie called back, urging the stranger to take a few more steps forward.  
“Oh I need neither rise nor fall,” Once again the stranger replied.  
“For when I do not move at all,” Rosie suddenly ran forward, nearly running the stranger off her feet as she took the android body into a bone-crushing hug. The stranger gave a delighted laugh as she returned the hug and finished the odd quote that only the two of them understood.   
“I shall be out of all your day!”   
“…What.” Caroline mumbled. Never before had she faced the challenging prospect that was poetry.   
“Wait a second…” Eric’s eyes widened beside me. Both Caroline and I looked to him, searching for answers, but he simply gave us both a knowing smile and stepped forward to join in the confusing reunion. Vic appeared to be deep in thought, taking Eric’s place beside Caroline.  
“I feel like I know those verses, but I can’t remember how.” She grumbled, deeply troubled by her forgetfulness. There was definitely an air of familiarity around the stranger – I’d definitely met her before, but that didn’t explain why she was in GLaDOS’ android body. 

Their conversation only lasted a moment before both Rosie and Eric grabbed the stranger by the shoulders and pushed her forward. She nearly stumbled in GLaDOS’ high heeled long fall boots but quickly recovered, her weary mannerisms and smile having returned when faced with the daunting prospect that was Caroline, Vic and I.   
“Chell,” Rosie stated proudly, her eyes shining. “Meet your mother!” 

Caroline. The stranger was Caroline I.


	15. Into the Labyrinth

The facility had fallen into a steely silence without the lifeblood of GLaDOS coursing through its walls. The time for reunion was not now; for that reason Caroline II was in no rush to converse with her Grandmother. Of course, Caroline understood, also consumed by a feeling of major urgency and wasted no time in getting the search for GLaDOS’ spare parts under way.

The sector of the facility that she guided them to which was several floors down had an unfamiliar air about it, and Caroline II admitted that she had never set upon the area in her travels. Wherever they were, everybody present had either not been aware that the sector had existed or they just didn’t want to talk about it. It was mostly the latter.   
“We closed down these labs and moved the GLaDOS Project upstairs around the first time GLaDOS went insane. I thought carrying out changes to her programming would be easier the closer we were to her.” Caroline told the small hunting party she had created, who were so unnerved by the haunting feeling of the lower levels that they were barely listening. Even Rosie and Eric, who had once spent so much of their time down here, were desperate to end the excavation as soon as they could.   
“So, you weren’t put into GLaDOS at the very start?” Chell couldn’t keep herself from asking – she knew that Caroline II would be wondering the same thing.   
“No, she went through several prototypes and versions before my co-workers and I decided it was time. I think one of her old prototype bodies is down here still…” Caroline responded with. Chell was deeply surprised by this response – Caroline was the one who agreed to it? That didn’t seem right. When she brought up the subject, Caroline nearly laughed in reply.   
“Oh, like hell I would agree to something like that! Of course I was forced! But, I came to terms with it, and went along with it peacefully… I actually managed to convince myself that living in that machine would be better for me than my failing body,” Her voice became wistful, almost ethereal. “To think a human being can be so wrong about something… It’s incredible.” 

These areas of the facility had the old grey tiling that Chell hadn’t seen for over forty years. It resembled strongly how the facility had looked the first time Chell had ‘murdered’ GLaDOS, but with a surprisingly more ancient feel. Most of the technology that had been left in the labs appeared to be from the mid-1990s, and Eric went on to complain that half of it hadn’t even been working when Caroline finally announced that they were moving upstairs. Chell was amused by the fact that most of the pieces of equipment in the various lab rooms heavily resembled GLaDOS’ initial appearance, before she repaired herself twenty years prior – the mixture of black and ice white was surprisingly calming, perhaps because of GLaDOS’ clear influence. 

The GLaDOS Project former labs were set out in an orderly manner. The rooms were incredibly bright and clean compared to the hallways outside, with not one single thing out of place. Caroline II could see spots where things once were, such as computers or large pieces of furniture – but, despite all of that, you could definitely tell that Caroline had once ran the place with her own version of an iron fist – in other words, a box filled with cleaning tools. The lights refused to switch on, so the humans had to rely on the illumination of Caroline’s android body’s yellow eyes to look around the various rooms, each one dedicated to a different part of GLaDOS’ initial construction. Caroline guided them around each one as if it had only been a matter of days since she had last set foot in the borderline ancient halls. Finally, Caroline demanded assistance to shift a desk out of place (which Chell could tell was slowly killing her mother’s OCD for absolute neatness). Eric rushed to her aid, being the strongest of the group, but it turned out that using only a quarter of the android body’s strength sent the desk flying across the room, messing everything up and, possibly, breaking some of Eric’s ribs. 

Behind the desk was what appeared to be a loose wall panel. Caroline gave it a swift kick and it bent right down the middle, allowing her to grab hold of it and pull it loose. Behind the wall panel was a hand-carved compartment, in which sat snugly a plain cardboard box – no brands name printed on the side or anything. She took hold of the hefty container and yanked it with some effort from its former hiding spot, carrying it over to one of the desks that was still standing after her earlier, accidental onslaught. Finally, on the top, Caroline pointed out the words ‘GLaDOS Spare Parts’ written in a frantic hand with black sharpie. 

“Why was there so much Cloak and Dagger about spare parts?” Caroline II finally broke her unusual silence as she ripped open the top of the box and examined the expensive hardware within.  
“There was a time, after GLaDOS’ third rampage, where the employees of Aperture Science actually were threatening to go on strike if we didn’t pull the plug on the GLaDOS project. When we refused, they carried out their threat – but for some reason they also felt the need to storm these labs. As an act of defiance, they only destroyed what they could tell for definite was linked to GLaDOS – computer files, papers, emails, software, parts…”   
“So you hid the parts so they couldn’t destroy them!” Caroline II caught on soon after, rousing a smile from the older Caroline.  
“Exactly!” 

It only took her a moment to find what they needed – a DM Module, as bright and shiny as the day it was purchased, wrapped up in a protective cloth near the bottom of the box. Scooping it up into her hands, Caroline took a moment to examine it for damage. When she was satisfied, she handed it to Caroline II, who promptly held it close to her chest, determination flashing in her eyes.   
“Right. Without further ado, let’s get this back to GLaDOS.” Caroline led the way out of the labs and back up into the facility proper. The facility, of course, was quiet. Not even the turret production line, which Caroline II could normally just make out from this part of the facility was whirring away far below. Its various machines were deathly silent, their furnaces cold for the first time in two decades. It was unnatural – the silence she could just deal with, but the idea of this place being switched off was frightening. She wanted this scenario to be over – she wanted GLaDOS back online, and she could already guess that she was the first person ever to think that. But it’s fine, she thought. We’ll get the DM Module installed and GLaDOS will be back to normal, like nothing was ever wrong.

Unfortunately for Caroline II, things were not destined to run so smoothly for her. Little did she know that with GLaDOS out of order, dangerous, crumbling parts of the facility that she had been protecting were now unguarded. By pure chance, the group lost their way and ended up deeper into the facility than any of them had ever been. Not even Caroline had been down onto the lowest levels, which were not the most glamorous areas of the facility.   
“This is where the mechanics and engineers worked. I never spoke with them.” Caroline spoke as they walked, her voice vibrating off of the plain metal walls.   
“Is there a way back up down here?” Chell asked the obvious question which was on everyone’s minds.  
“Yeah, there’s several. But GLaDOS’ network didn’t hold much authority down here so we might struggle to find one not blocked off by rubble…” 

As if that wasn’t obvious. The place stunk of decay and ruin. They might as well have waltzed into an age-old crypt out of some sort of fantasy movie. Various tools hanging off hooks on the walls reminded Caroline II of skeletal hands – trying to keep herself calm and amused, she tried to find an item that resembled a skull. Caroline’s attention was drawn to a tall structure, stretching right up into the ceiling up ahead. As they broke out of the hallway and out onto the walkway, Caroline II noticed that they were right above one of the many crushing machines leading to the incinerator. She could just see the remnants of the once flourishing embers underneath. Caroline guided them to what appeared to be an elevator at the end of the walkway.   
“This is the old emergency elevator, designed for situations like this. It should take us back to GLaDOS’ floor.” She explained. That was the only convincing they needed. 

The emergency elevator at first appeared to respond positively to its sudden activation as the entire group piled in without a second thought. Caroline pulled on the release and the elevator shuddered upwards, taking an agonizing moment to reach full speed. Just as Caroline II exhaled her nervous breath, the elevator jutted to a halt, sparks rained down from somewhere above and dissolved into the darkness.

They stood there, eyes wide and breath frozen for what felt like years, until finally the elevator shifted.

Downwards. 

Their faces dropped and their blood turned to ice, just as the elevator finished off the last stage of its malfunction and broke away from the shaft, descending rapidly towards the crushers. While the others screamed, terrified, the two Carolines remained strangely silent, but terror was etched onto their faces like hieroglyphs onto a stone wall. They locked gazes with one another, reached out and took hold of each other’s hands - and the thick metal cables supporting the elevator from high above pulled back, objecting to the elevator’s escape sending it careering back into the shaft, smashing through the metal beams like a wrecking ball. Then, finally, the cables gave out with a pained groan and the elevator fell through the air like a rock, dropping with increasing velocity past the incinerator – past the ashes – past even Android Hell – until finally it dawned on both Caroline and Chell at once where they were going. Chell had seen it all before twenty years ago, and Caroline had once lived amongst it.

They were all wearing Long Fall Boots. They had a chance of surviving this. Slim, but it was there. Their energy spent on screaming high above, everybody was now stunned into an amazed silence, all eyes scanning the walls as what was once darkness turned into a lit ash-ridden tunnel, stretching deep down into the bowels of the earth. 

The end of the tunnel came up surprisingly fast, quicker than Chell remembered with the other tunnel she had faced with GLaDOS. The bare-boned metal elevator was now roasting hot, but nobody had a choice but to hold on to the sides. It was oddly easy to ignore the burning of her hands as Caroline II tried to trace the numbers printed on the tunnel as they fell past them – 1980 – 1970 – 1960-!

The elevator’s metal wires that still clung on decided to try their luck once more, latching onto something unseen above them. The elevator jolted to a vicious halt – Chell locked on to the ground several feet below. They were right at the tunnel’s end, so close and yet so far. Jumping from this height was still far too risky, especially for one of the younger ones. Yet, being forced to hold on to the elevator to avoid falling was slowly burning them to death. Eric was sacrificing himself as a handhold so Vic had something safe to hold on to – she could actually see his skin bubbling with how tightly he was gripping the metal. Caroline II was in much the same position – her hands blistered and burnt as if licked by fire. Yet, her expression was steely and concentrated, like the pain mattered not. Chell ignored boldly her own pain to try and analyse some form of escape, but she could think of none that was completely safe. Somebody would get hurt, no matter what they decided to do. But whatever they were going to do, they had to do it now. The wires that had once again come to their rescue cried out in a metallic screech. They would give away soon.   
“We have to jump!” Chell called to anybody who was concentrating enough to listen.   
“That sounds like a terrible idea!” Both Carolines roared in synchronised shock.   
“We have no choice! This elevator will crush us all when it falls!” She quickly reminded them. There was a moment of hesitation before Caroline nodded in agreement.   
“Caroline, you have the DM Module. You need to go first.” Chell looked to her daughter with a stern expression, watching as she slowly retorted with a glare of her own. She decided against talking back, just this once, and turned to leap over the side. As she jumped, she heard the wires snap for the final time and watched with fear and guilt as the elevator’s rusted corpse crashed into the ground full-force. She landed gracefully several paces away, but pain soon followed and she was sent with a hiss of pain to her knees – she felt like both her ankles had just snapped at once, but even if that had happened, the Long Fall Boots would allow her to walk more at least for a little while. She never looked away the entire time as the elevator folded itself up like origami – she could see no signs of life after it came to a stop. 

All she did was stare for a few minutes, her heart rate slowly accelerating with fear. Her entire body was in shock – she wanted to go over and see if anybody was alive, but she couldn’t will herself to move. She shuddered as the cold of the strange land around her settled in and the DM Module poked gently at her side. Feeling a sudden rush of determination, she forced herself back to her feet and hobbled over to the ruins of the elevator. For GLaDOS, she hissed under her breath. It’s for GLaDOS! 

Back on her knees she looked under the wreckage and found two squinting yellow eyes looking back at her. Feeling a wave of relief pass over her, Caroline II held out her hand for her seemingly unharmed Grandmother. 

Caroline wriggled free of the wreck and proceeded to assist her Granddaughter in freeing the others by using the android body’s strength to life up the elevator. Caroline II slithered underneath and dragged out all who remained – all passed out, all slightly injured, but breathing. All but one. 

It came as a shock at first, but that shock soon ascended to full-scale panic when Caroline II realised that she wasn’t imagining things – and Vic was indeed not breathing. Blood pooled from a deep gash across her face that cut across her lips, nose and eyes. When Caroline II found that one of the still red-hot elevator beams was responsible, she nearly kicked it in outrage.   
“There’s nothing we can do,” Caroline spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. She gripped the elevator in one hand and held out the other to Caroline II. “Come out of there.” The younger Caroline noted the elder’s lack of emotion, but took her hand anyway, allowing herself to be hoisted to her feet.  
“You don’t seem to care much.” She pointed out, to which Caroline released her hand and crossed her arms, allowing the elevator to fall flat against the ground again.   
“I’ve seen so many deaths in my lifetime that I’ve lost any empathy I had.” The android body admitted. She saw her granddaughter’s muscles tense and her hair slightly frizz, her eyes suddenly ablaze with emotion. She knew the signs – she had had to live with them in the shape of Caroline II’s grandfather.   
“You’re about to explode in a rage at me, aren’t you?” She nearly smiled in amusement. “Just like your grandfather.” 

Caroline II deflated instantly, her eyes growing wide with surprise.   
“What?”  
“He used to be exactly the same. Back in the old days, when we were still anything close to human, if a test subject died he would get so insanely angry – he’d take it out on anybody who got too close – and it was because he felt guilty.”   
“Guilty?”  
“He always felt responsible for somebody’s death, and he would get so upset about it that he would try his best to blame the death on somebody else by flying into a rage at the first person he saw - admit it, you were about to blame that girl’s death on me.” 

Yes, Caroline II was. While in the throngs of her rage, she had managed to plan out a whole speech in her head explaining why Caroline was to blame for Vic’s death, but she was quick to realise that she was wrong. It wasn’t Caroline’s fault. It couldn’t be blamed on anybody – it was just an accident. Accidents happened all the time in Aperture Science. It was normal. It should have felt normal.

Drained of both energy and emotion, Caroline II hobbled over to the passed out form of her mother and worked on trying to wake her up. Meanwhile, Caroline looked over the slight graze on the android body’s arm, which had left a few wires exposed. Nothing serious. She turned away from the fresh carnage behind her to the ancient carnage up ahead.   
“It’s been a while since I was last here.” She mouthed to herself, taking in the sight of the new facility high up above. She traced the cooling towers, the damaged cranes, the ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs with her eyes – it almost felt good to be back in the Salt Mines.


	16. Follow the Yellow Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh I remember writing this chapter, haha. This one is a little weird. I hope this makes you guys laugh as much as it made me laugh writing it!

Caroline would often think back to the words of her mother. The two had got along incredibly well and when Caroline left for Aperture and severed all connections, she had no doubt that it had broken her mother’s poor heart. She still remembered one conversation they had had when she was merely eighteen years old and heading off for her induction day as Cave Johnson’s secretary.   
“Caroline,” Her mother’s face was stern, her mouth thinned out into the beginnings of a frown. “You’re gonna get nowhere fast with that Cave Johnson fella.”   
“You keep saying that,” Caroline hissed in reply. “But you can’t hold a candle to Mr. Johnson, mom. I’m better there than I am here.” She watched with surprising joy as her mother’s face fell and then darted out the door, firing up her scooter without another word and shooting away to a world that she would never be able to escape from, not that she had ever wanted to. It was true, her parents had never aspired to much, dedicated so profusely to raising her and her younger brother, James. Her mother had been unemployed, happy being a full-time mother especially because James was… ‘different’, in her mother’s own words, and was in care around the clock. Her father was a nice, gentle man who adored his family but spent so much time at his work in a nearby munitions factory that she never saw him. Sure, some of his time was freed up when the war ended but of course he decided to spend this drinking with his dipshit friends. Despite how much like a ‘gem’ she had once seemed to Mr. Johnson, she viewed herself in a much different light – she knew that she was not the kindest person, and working within Aperture’s secretive walls certainly did not help that. Despite everything she went through, everything she did coming from an immigrant family at the very bottom of the food chain, she was the apple of Cave Johnson’s eye, succeeded only by their beautiful daughter, Chell – and over time that soon became all that mattered to her. The outside world didn’t even exist to her anymore.

If only she could see her mother now, and tell her that she had been right all along. If only she could see her mother and tell her where her undying loyalty to Mr. Johnson had got her – she wasn’t mad at him, no, she couldn’t be – she loved him too much. She was mad at his madness. If he hadn’t lost his mind whilst in the throngs of disease, he wouldn’t have ordered her to have her conscious inserted into a prototype stadium-sized Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. He would have let her die peacefully, he would have let her meet an end – he got to shake hands with death and accompany him into the worlds beyond, but she did not. Sometimes, it just didn’t feel fair.

She stared back down at the mechanical gash on her arm, watching as the sliced wires gave off tiny, whiny sparks. They annoyed her more than caused her pain - when she had designed this body, she had designed it to be able to take worse than this. She could only hope that somebody would know how to repair it when this was all over, otherwise GLaDOS would lose the rag at her, being the condescending bitch that she was. 

She looked back to her granddaughter, seriously struggling to walk in her current state. The others, who had finally awoke with heavy hearts at the sight of their dead companion, were pursuing her quickly across the damp surface of the mines. Without asking for permission, Eric simply scooped up the teenage girl into his arms and carried her bridal style. She was too tired to complain, but Caroline did pick up traces of heat forming in her granddaughter’s cheeks. She smiled for a moment, before moving to assist Rosie in walking, who had sprained an ankle during the fall. 

Upon reaching a dead end, the small group drew to a halt and looked immediately to Caroline.  
“Where do we go from here, Mrs. Johnson?” Eric directed the question at her, causing Caroline to reply with a grin she felt would suit GLaDOS more than herself.   
“I have to admit, this place has decayed a lot since I was last here – this would all be a lot easier with a Portal Gun…” She scanned the dead end, consisting of collapsed debris from the ceiling and equipment high above, searching for any kind of easy way through. She felt a twang of frustration when she laid eyes on a perfect portal route, but of course, none of them had a Portal Gun. She sighed, looking back to her followers.  
“I guess we’re doing this the old fashioned way.” 

Being the fittest, she climbed to the top of the debris pile and assisted the others in climbing over onto the other side. She was especially careful with assisting Eric and Caroline II, but they could soon move on with no casualties. They passed the bodies of several destroyed turrets on their slow journey to the old Aperture Science, all frighteningly recent.   
“You know, I’ve always wondered how the poor little guys got down here.” Chell mumbled to herself, not actually expecting Caroline to reply.  
“Those turrets the test subjects knock off the side of the test chambers?” Everybody’s eyes rested on one of the crushed turrets. Caroline II happened to look right into its still flashing red eye and began to feel ever so slightly sick. “Yeah, that’s them.” 

Sick of assisting the battered and bruised humans over the continuous piles of debris, Caroline soon settled for shifting everything out of the way with her superhuman strength. Soon, the way ahead of them was completely clear. After far too much stalling, they reached the vault into the Old Aperture. It was still hanging open from when Chell and GLaDOS had passed through twenty years prior. Passing through the tiny door the vault had been concealing and stepping into the courtyard of 1940’s Aperture felt like stepping into a totally different dimension. For Caroline herself, it felt like stepping back in time. 

So when Caroline took one accidental step forward and triggered Cave Johnson’s pre-recorded messages, the entire group with the exception of Chell were blown away by his booming, powerful voice. All of a sudden, graced for the second time with the commanding presence of Johnson’s voice, Chell realized just how similar Caroline II was to the former Aperture CEO and placed a hand on the young girl’s shoulder. Caroline II looked incredibly worse for wear – tears were sealed away within her eyes and her caramel-like skin had flushed pale. She seemed so out of it that she was barely even aware that somebody’s voice was blaring over the hidden sound system. Despite how serious the mood felt, when Caroline adorably chimed in on the message, the android’s face turned bright pink and Eric and Rosie stifled their laughs. 

Of course, the room could not be bypassed without a Portal Gun, but Caroline was quick to think of a solution. She grabbed hold of the fallen piece of the iron walkway and sat it against the elevated ground, creating something of a ramp that would take them into the main lobby. She held it steady as each person carefully climbed, before letting it fall and hauling herself up. Passing into the main lobby, Caroline was hit instantly by a feeling of severe déjà vu. The group did their best to ignore the pre-recorded messages, but of course when spoken by a man whose very vocal chords demanded respect, they were difficult to shut out.

“For those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we’re postponing those tests indefinitely. The good news is we’ve got an even better test for ya; fighting an army of mantis men! Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line – you’ll know when the test starts!” 

Then it hit Caroline like a sharp kick in the teeth – the Yellow Line.   
“I know how we can get out of here.” 

If her memory served her correctly, Caroline could lead the group straight to an emergency escape elevator that would take them right up to the surface. They would be able to re-enter the facility from there. However, it would mean passing through one of the Vitrified test chambers – the exact test chamber which had been used to contain the mantis men and was never cleared out completely. 

Meaning that, potentially, some of the mantis men could still be alive and well.   
“Why would you put an escape elevator at the end of a test chamber?” Caroline II groggily asked from her place in Eric’s arms.   
“I know, it’s a serious design flaw – but apparently we saved thousands of dollars by putting it there and not somewhere easily accessible.” Caroline replied with, only now aware of Mr. Johnson’s titanic stupidity. I never should have let him put the escape lift there… Good job, Caroline. Good job. 

Going through several complicated alternatives with the help of the DM Module in her head, Caroline finally came to the conclusion that the test chamber filled to the brim with potentially living mantis men was the only way forward that had any chance of survival at all. So, she breathed a calm sigh and guided her band of humans along the elusive yellow line. Unfortunately, the rifles Mr. Johnson had mentioned were nowhere in sight. They would have been very comforting right about now. 

The yellow line, whether it was because of age or deliberate removal, eventually faded away out of sight. Clearly, this particular set of test chambers had been out of use for a very long time. Caroline led them around one final corner and they were graced with the presence of at least fifteen chamber doors, all ancient, all ‘Vitrified’. Some were even sealed shut with concrete and wooden planks – these ones appeared to have been considerably bashed from the inside. Caroline II left the animal-like growling she heard behind one of these doors up to pain-induced hallucinations, even though it was evident from the look on Eric’s face that he had heard them too. It was easier not to panic that way. 

Caroline pinpointed exactly which chamber it was – the door at the farthest end of the hallway – and entered in the required code, which she was surprised to find she remembered so well. As she wrenched the door open, everybody inched back, wondering why Caroline hadn’t braced herself for some sort of mantis attack – only to find that there was a fairly small room before them, stacked high with prototype equipment and a huge testing tube. Within that testing tube, an uncomfortable mantis man stared at them with its multi-lensed eyes. He appeared to be clad in a U.S. Army uniform from the 1940’s, with a necklace of dog tags still hanging from his elongated neck. He was one of the ‘War Heroes’ that Johnson had mentioned in his pre-recorded messages. Caroline completely ignored the beast, despite how intently it began to look at her as she passed by and stopped by the next door.  
“Through here. On the other side of this door is the escape lift and the potential danger.” Caroline slid across the metal cover on the door, revealing the still perfectly lit chamber. Ancient blood, long since dried, stained the walls and skeletons were scattered across the floor, some were even pinned to the ceiling. Caroline could actually see the rifles lying beside their former masters and sighed inwardly.   
“What a waste of perfectly good test subjects.” She turned back to the group, who she noticed were entirely focused on the mantis man in the tube. He chittered away to them like he was trying to say something, seemingly friendly, particularly fascinated by Chell and Caroline II.  
“I’m not sure where they’ve gone, but the room has no mantis men in it. I guess they must have escaped.”   
“To be honest, that sounds worse than having them all in the one room.” Chell commented, earning a smirk from her mother.   
“They were pretty territorial, if I remember correctly.” 

Cautioning the others, Caroline unlocked the door much like she had with the previous one and tugged it open. The stench of decay hit them full on, with Caroline II being hit the worst. She appeared incredibly close to passing out, slipping in and out of concsiousness. Eric did his best to keep her awake, but the pain was just proving too much for her. 

Quickly checking for any enemies she may have missed, Caroline stepped into the testing chamber and immediately located where the mantis men had gone. Massive tunnels, seemingly mantis-made, had been drilled through the concrete in nearly every available spot in the room – the mantis men had dug their way out, presumably long ago.  
“Caroline, what’s with the test tube anyway?” Rosie piped up from the doorway, keeping her voice hushed.  
“It was one of our earliest prototypes for Extended Relaxation – does all the same things as the vaults upstairs, but we couldn’t work out how to put the person to sleep without killing them with the vapours,” Caroline examined one of the tunnels – it showed no signs of recent use. Presumably, no mantis men had traversed through these tunnels since their initial escape from the test chamber. Caroline couldn’t help but smirk – they could be all over America by now. “We started using the mantis men as guinea pigs so we didn’t lose any more staff, but I guess we must have abandoned this area mid-experiment.”

Eventually, after confirming her suspicions she stood up and beckoned the bystanders into the room. Caroline II’s half-dazed attention was behind her. She was gazing at the test tube, deep in thought.   
“So that explains why he’s still alive.” She drawled. Of course, there was a very small chance of any of the original mantis men actually still being alive – Caroline could only prey that the bastards hadn’t bred. 

She guided them over to the other side of the room, where she shook free a loose panel from the wall. Behind it was the desired escape lift door, but it was jammed shut from years of neglect and also seemed to need a key. As her grandmother struggled against the door, Caroline II was deeply unnerved by how the noise they were making rebounded off the solid walls. The sounds seemed amplified tenfold, especially when Caroline got violent with the door, still to no avail.  
“Granny, stop…” Caroline II suddenly hissed and her grandmother came away from the door, giving her a questioning expression.   
“I don’t think these tunnels are for transport alone…” 

Alas, she was correct.

***

Elsewhere in the deep depths of ancient Aperture, there rested a nest of mantis men and women – new, of course, bred from the one solitary mantis woman and countless mantis men of the original experiment gone wrong. These mantises were mostly only about ten years old, but were already the height of adult Clydesdale horses – and five times as strong. Their mandibles which replaced what should have been their hands were sharp as steel and powerful enough to break through boulders – they could painfully easily ambush a small group of wounded humans, even if they were defended by a superpowered android. The second the sound of human movement reached them through their extensive tunnel system, the queen of the group who was of forty years turned to her youngest warriors, all of which had just completed their training that day. (For the benefit of the readers, I took the liberty of translating their strange tribal language into English.)  
“Fledglings,” The queen sounded out, standing to her full height over all other mantises present. “At long last humans have returned to claim back their home, the world known as ‘Aperture Science Innovators’, which our ancestors so bravely took from them long ago. It is just as the prophecy foretold.”

Two of the largest mantises, whose impressive green hides were practically glowing in what little light there was (they had made light sources out of radioactive waste and old mantis husks), approached the queen and respectfully bowed, each one tucking a mandible into their chest.   
“My Queen, I stand before you as Hunter-of-Hunters, the trainer of these young warriors – they are ready,” His voice was gruff and heavily damaged – due to their incorrect DNA splicing, damaged voice boxes were a common occurrence as mantis men got older. “However, I must caution you – the humans are dangerous creatures, especially when injured. They have incredible resolve and an impressive ability to fight for their lives when they know the end is near. They will not take kindly to being trapped, especially when they discover the urgency of their situation.”   
“What do you suggest, Fabled Hunter-of-Hunters?” The queen crowed, leaning over the males who appeared so puny compared to her form, rippling with muscles and spikes.   
“I offer up my son to lead them into battle – he is my best student and has proved himself a worthy soldier in our war against the humans. His voice is loud, his body strong and his mind sharp as a mandible.” Hunter-of-Hunters responded with, indicating to his son with a fond gaze. The son in question undid himself from the bow and stood to his full height for the Queen to examine him. Already seventeen years old, he was an impressive beast and the Queen was very pleased.   
“Very well, Fabled Hunter-of-Hunters – what is his warrior name? What title has he claimed on the field of battle?” The Queen next questioned. Hunter-of-Hunters nearly laughed, a smile gracing his insectified features that were barely recognizable as human.   
“He goes by the name of Destroyer-of-Helicopters, My Queen.” (Due to his impressive feat of bringing down an innocent human helicopter when he was thirteen.)  
“Very well,” The Queen backed away from those standing before her, stretching herself up as high as she could go and digging her blood-red mandibles into the ground. “Destroyer-of-Helicopters, go forth with your new soldiers to our Ancient battleground, ‘Test Chamber 05’, and finish off the humans of ‘Aperture Science Innovators’ once and for all!”

***

However, the humans in question did not know any of this, so when the mantis warriors suddenly shot out of the ancient tunnels and cornered them against the useless emergency exit, they saw them only as giant, slobbery monsters. Everybody but the two Carolines screamed, squishing themselves up into a protective formation as Caroline turned back to the door and brought her foot down on it with all of her might. Trust this to happen now, Caroline hissed to herself. Damn you Cave Johnson and your useless experiments! 

Destroyer-of-Helicopters nudged his soldiers aside and dug his mandibles into the ground, looking down upon the humans half his size with a sick smirk.  
“Pathetic humans, you dare tread back into our lands after we won them from you!? Unarmed, nevertheless!? Do your kind have a death wish!?”   
“…I think it just spoke.” Caroline II made an obvious observation, to which Eric had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.  
“I wonder what language that is, how fascinating!” Rosie’s scientific side took over and all fear was gone. She trudged on up to Destroyer-of-Helicopters and placed her hands firmly on his chest. “Wow, your entire body is one big exoskeleton! That’s amazing!”   
“D-Don’t touch me, pesky creature! You dare mock me!?” (None of the humans knew what he was saying, of course.)

All parties except Caroline II seemed to completely miss the sound of smashing glass beyond the test chamber. When she saw the war hero mantis man who had been in the testing tube step silently into the test chamber and advance on Destroyer-of-Helicopters from behind, she chose to stay quiet. Maybe this would work to their advantage. Keep doing what you’re doing, Rosie. She begged silently.  
“Caroline, are you seeing this!? Check out these wicked mandibles! They’re about twice my height!” Rosie gawked at the impressive structures, running her hands along the blunt edges of the spikes.   
“Of course I’m aware of them, I’m partially responsible for these damned things!” Caroline shouted from her place at the door in frustration. Another failed kick to the door sent her sprawling backwards.   
“Fools!” He raised his mandibles from the ground and knocked poor Rosie over as he turned on her, readying to slice her clean in half. “Don’t think that you can trick the mighty Destroyer-of-Helicopters with your empty flattery!” Chell was about to intervene before the war hero beat her to it, leaping onto the much larger Destroyer-of-Helicopters and wrapping his mandibles around the enemy’s neck.  
“Not on my watch, you overgrown bug!” War Hero screamed in a perfectly human voice. He threw the green mantis to the ground and stomped his leather military boot down on his chest, holding the sharp side of his mandible against Destroyer-of-Helicopters’ jugular.   
“W-What is this treachery!? Who in the blazes do you think you are!?” DOH screeched in outrage, but War Hero slit his throat before he could continue.   
“I have no idea what hocus-pocus you were coming out with there Fella, but it sure as hell wasn’t anything nice.” War Hero laughed in his strong Texan accent. Caroline had stopped her desperate escape attempt and was watching War Hero with wide yellow eyes.  
“Is that Buzz MacDonald!?” Caroline called out, to which War Hero paused to look at her, before giving her a quick bow.   
“Yes it is, Miss Caroline! Been a while!”   
“Can we save the formalities for later, please!?” Chell turned to the door and took over from Caroline. 

The mantis warriors were closing in.   
“You can’t handle all these guys alone,” Caroline stood beside the former test subject and friend. “Need some help?”   
“If you can handle it.” Was Buzz’s reply. The friendly mantis man tugged the dogtags around his neck until they came loose and chucked them to the humans behind him. It was Caroline II who reached up and caught them only to discover a small key was wedged between the two tags.  
“Use that to get out of here! It’s the key to the emergency elevator!” Buzz called before turning back to the oncoming soldiers. Caroline crossed her arms and glared at him.  
“And why did you have that?” She questioned, just as the soldiers lunged, the door opened and the humans rushed inside.   
“I was part of the control group.” He replied with. The next moment they were both locked in ferocious combat with an army of mantis men.

The last Caroline II ever saw of her grandmother was the android body drop-kicking a mantis man in the face and then ripping off his mandibles, before proceeding to use them as dual blades against the others. Just as Caroline ceased her fighting and began to look around, the door closed and Caroline II was rushed into the elevator. It took her a moment to realise that the hot stinging of her cheeks was because of tears and the voice screaming out ‘Granny’ was her own.


	17. Born With the Curse

Darkness enveloped the elevator as it shuddered its way up the shaft, all the way to the surface which Caroline II longed for seeing again. Tears dried on her cheeks as she finally managed to steel herself. Chell and Rosie watched intently the lit walls on each side of the lift, keeping an eye out for any would-be tunnelling mantis men. 

The pain in her ankles was skull-splitting - while it wasn't too hard to walk with the assistance of the Long Fall Boots, the pain wasn't something she could just shrug off. Eric hovered over her like a protective shield, staring off into space, his eyes glazed over. Even though she knew how unlikely it seemed, Caroline kept hoping that they would reach the surface and her grandmother would be standing there, battle-worn but alive.

They must have been in the elevator for about ten minutes before they finally reached the surface. The elevator doors screeched open on rusted wheels and a world gripped in the throngs of night-time stood before them - and her grandmother was nowhere in sight. 

Locked in silence, brought on more by sheer exhaustion than depression, Eric scooped up Caroline II once more and she pointed out the same loose panel that she had used to infiltrate the facility all that time ago - it was still loose. For some reason, GLaDOS had neglected to repair it.

Inside the warehouse of Extended Relaxation Vaults, they were met by a frantic Wheatley, who was babbling on about goodness knows what until he spotted Caroline in her weak state, after which he fell uncharacteristically silent. With a shaking hand, Caroline took the DM Module out of her pocket and held it up for Wheatley to see. His optic shrunk to the size of a dot and he tried to keep his shaking under control. Nervously, his voice barely above a whisper, he mumbled;  
"I'll take her the rest of the way."

Eric of course objected, but Caroline wordlessly squirmed out of his grip and took hold of Wheatley's top handle, bringing her boots up and wrapping them around his core.  
"Go." Her voice weak and hoarse, she growled. He didn't dare say a single word to oppose her - the look in her eyes seemed strikingly familiar, they reminded Wheatley much of the cold indifference GLaDOS herself normally retained within her golden optic. Like grandmother, like granddaughter. His own DM Module was overloaded with confused and colliding signals as he began to transport Caroline II across the great bottomless chasm. It wasn't long before Eric, Rosie and Chell were out of sight and Wheatley and Caroline II were on their own.

***

We slipped out of the warehouse and into the main hallway. I recognized it as the pathway Wheatley used to take me to GLaDOS when we first met. Although he was a little ahead of me, I paid no attention to him, focused completely on the hall before me. I just didn't feel like talking. 

I slipped the dogtags around my neck and attached the DM Module to the chain. It instantly felt at home around my neck - it even helped to calm me somewhat. It was a piece of GLaDOS, after all.  
"Luv..." Wheatley stuttered, his gentle voice still managing to echo in the vast hallway. "Doesn't it hurt?"   
Too tired to reply, I gave him a questioning stare, raising an eyebrow.  
"I mean, your legs - you've broken something in them, haven't you? I-I mean, I don't know how your fleshy body works, but - but I do know that you have a skeleton, because I have one too! Although, mine's - mine's made out of metal, so I know it's not much of a comparison," Get to the point, already. "And you've broken your skeleton, right? Somewhere in your legs? I could tell because... well, your grip on me with your legs was really loose, Luv..."  
"Both ankles." I spat emotionlessly. I really wanted him to keep quiet so I could think.  
"R-Right," He replied with. "I wish there was something I could do."  
"Nothing to do."  
"Right. Okay. Wheatley's shutting up now."

A few more steps were taken in silence before there was a violent crash somewhere in the facility. The impact sent me sprawling to the ground, my weak ankles unable to handle the sudden change in pressure. I banged my head against the wall, but the impact seemed a lot sharper - and much more agonising - than it should have been.   
"Caroline! Are you okay!?" I'd never heard the core sound so terrified. The world spun around me like I was sitting on a carousel. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't steady myself enough to keep moving - and since when was there double of Wheatley? His honeycomb blue optic shrunk back to dot size, his handles shooting up, emulating terror.  
"Oh - Oh no, Luv, oh no, Caroline..." 

I wanted to ask him what was wrong but I just didn't have the strength. I felt like somebody had struck me with a sledgehammer.  
"You - you've banged your head, Caroline, yes you have - you're bleeding, there's blood, oh no-!"

There's blood? What the heck did I hit myself on? I slowly turned my half-lidded gaze to the wall, to find I'd bashed it right off of a chipped tile - the tile had come away from the wall with me and was in several pointed shards on the floor, covered in blood. My blood. 

I became aware of it dripping down my face at an alarming pace and the excruciating pain hit me like an armoured car going full-throttle. With a limp hand that was no longer listening to my commands, I managed to just pull a small porcelain chip out of the side of my head - drenched crimson, of course.   
"Don't touch it, Caroline, don't, please..." I looked slowly to him - I'd never seen him like this before. He looked somewhere between shitscared and foolishly brave. The facility was falling apart at the seams without GLaDOS to maintain it and he wanted so badly to run away, but he didn't seem to be able to leave me. Whatever - once I reached GLaDOS, everything would be fine. I could fix all of this, and our lives could go back, at least partially to the way they were before.

He mumbled nonchalantly for several more minutes as I let my senses return to normal. Eventually able to ignore the pain in my head, I pulled myself to my feet and continued to stagger down the hallway. Why the hell did granddad need such long hallways anyway? Who had he been trying to impress with these things?  
"P-Please be careful!" Wheatley called behind me as he moved to catch up. I reached up and grabbed a hold of his bottom handle. For once in his life, he seemed to understand what I was doing and allowed me to use him to support myself as he guided me along. We continued on in silence, finally rounding the corner. 

Another vicious rumble shook the facility. With Wheatley's support I didn't lose my footing and we managed to keep moving after recovering from the surprise – but the resuming calmness didn’t last. 

The ceiling caved in above us, bashed in by an iron support beam. The beam in question sliced right through the hallway, taking the maintenance rail along with it. Wheatley was left, snivelling like a child on one side of the hallway, while I’d collapsed on the other. He could no longer be there for me.  
“Listen, Luv – keep making your way to Her! I’ll find another way around, don’t worry!” He started to zip back the way we had come, turning back around to look at me every few seconds. “I’ll come back to you! Trust me!” 

Trust him. I can only try. Getting to my feet was a trying task, but not entirely impossible. It did take me a few minutes but it was easier to move when I was standing upright. In fact, despite my gradually weakening condition I was making quite good progress. I managed to make it into the elevator, which merrily took me up into the chaos of the failing facility – past all manners of things, including test chambers ablaze with smoke and fire and the turret production line, silent as stone.

The elevator finally stopped in the main lobby of Aperture Science – the only time I had ever seen this place before had been in the security camera footage that GLaDOS had used to watch those invading humans. The stench of death still littered this room after she’d gassed them – GLaDOS had sent Atlas and P-Body to clean the room up, no bodies remained, but somehow the smell still lingered. Feeling my head start to spin once more, I quickly cut across the room, advancing down the main hallway and following the signs to the Central AI Chamber. On my way, I passed a doorway which led into a women’s bathroom. I shuffled inside, hoping to maybe find something to help me walk and checked myself out in one of the mirrors. My dark skin had paled, blood trickled from the visible wound within my hair and my ponytail was frazzled and loose while my fringe trickled over my face, knotted and stained crimson. My eyes were bloodshot, glazed over and half-shut. I looked like I’d been exposed to radiation, then dipped in a vat of grease and then last but not least, dragged through a bush backwards. I tried to pull my hair out of my eyes before moving on. 

Progress became continuously slower as my head increasingly pounded. Several more tremors wracked the facility before I even got close to GLaDOS’ chamber. I tried to find ways of suppressing the pain and the light-headedness, even channelling all of my remaining concentration into the curious metal sound my boots made with each step I took. My vision was starting to blur, sounds seemed muffled and the world around me shook with the force of an earthquake – but that wasn’t in my head. The hallway I was in tilted to the left as if something had knocked it out of place. My foot gave out from underneath me and I hit the floor, rolling until my back was against the wall. My back stung like hell – a light had exploded above where I had been standing. Perhaps I had glass in my back now; I was too weak to tell. My muscles screamed for rest, my mind begged for sleep – but I knew if I gave in now that I might not wake up. Who would have thought that my body would have given in so easily?

I never realized it would feel like this. I’ve been surrounded by death all my life – from the moment I was born I was tied up in the curse in some way. Mom faked my own death and hers to escape the life my father had planned out for us. GLaDOS was created from the essence of my grandmother, who died to make Her happen, then exacted her revenge and murdered every person in the facility, apart from a select few. I’ve grown up in a world where humans are a dying breed amongst aliens and evolving monsters, all designed to hunt man. The facility I live in is empty because of GLaDOS and sometimes I couldn’t help but think to what life would be like with more humans in these halls. I’ve lost Vic and my grandmother, I have the deaths of several mantis men on my conscious and now I’m dying. The DM Module is around my neck and I’m dying. I never got back to GLaDOS and I’m dying. She’s gonna be stuck like that forever and I’ll be dead. 

When I was in my final moments, something pressed into my back – it was gently pushing me, like it was trying to encourage me away from the wall. I risked a look back – it was one of GLaDOS’ wall panels. How could they be functioning without her?

The small section of hall that I was lying in suddenly came away from the rest of the hall and was pulled across the facility slowly by some unseen machine. When no voice responded to my summons but the security camera trapped with me continued to watch me, flexing every so often its all-seeing eye, I realized who was trying to assist me.  
“Hiya, Granny.” I mumbled through dry lips.

The piece of hallway that was acting as my transportation was flying right to the hefty cylinder that acted as GLaDOS’ abode. The wall and floor panels shifted underneath me, trying to get me standing – one even ‘punched’ me in the chin, forcing me to bolt upright. By the time we were hovering over the Central AI Chamber’s only surviving entrance, I was awake enough to keep moving. I lowered myself down onto the floor outside the chamber and keyed myself in through the door, limping my way inside. It was nearly over. At long last, this nightmare was drawing to a close. She hung there in all of her magnificence, watching curiously as I entered the room, her Automatic Tracking System following every slow, agonizing movement I made. It took me an age to cross the room and reach her – blood trailed behind me. She wouldn’t be happy about that. 

It was hard to keep a strong grip on her with my shaking hands but I managed to swing myself up and over her neck, where I located a small flap hanging open. This must be where mom had originally removed the DM Module from. I dug through the wires until I found the empty slot, took the DM Module from around my neck and slotted it in, closing the flap over afterwards. Then, hit by a wave of dizziness as GLaDOS began to reboot, I lost my balance and fell from her neck, crashing painfully to the ground. I couldn’t keep on like this. I was done for if I didn’t get help soon.

“Vital Component installation complete. Starting up Central Core Operation System…” I had never been more relieved to hear the voice of that stupid announcer…

I rolled onto my back to watch as she awoke, trying to ignore the jagged pain of the shards of glass digging into me there. It took a moment for her golden optic to flash on to full brightness and in the next instance her eye was upon me.  
“What a nice thing to wake up to. You’re such a lazy slob.” She growled at me. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.   
“Nice to see you again, GLaDOS.” I rasped. I was surprised to see her withdraw slightly.  
“Have we met before?” She asked suspiciously and I felt a jolt of confused fear rush through my paralyzed form. Wait, what!?


	18. Amnesia

So, it had all been for nothing. Despite our best efforts, repairing GLaDOS had simply broken something else – her mind. 

It seemed that the system restart had wiped most of her memory, but tiny fragments remained. She had forgotten everything from the past year, including other little details. For example, she could remember my mother’s escapade to bring her down about forty years prior, but couldn’t seem to link A to B – she couldn’t recognize mother as that same person who had defeated her. It was a strange situation - possibly one that not even Caroline had ever predicted. 

About a month had passed since the DM Module incident. While GLaDOS showed no further signs of malfunction, apart from occasionally being a few seconds off in her calculations, her memory had not returned and we couldn’t seem to recover it. Attempts to locate the missing fragments physically had failed and attempts to trigger her memory went mostly ignored by her. It seemed that granny was back with Her as she would frequently try to break through and communicate with us – but GLaDOS mistook her for a virus each time and blocked her access. This meant that she’d had time to think on the situation and, hopefully, she had some sort of plan…

Because nobody else did. 

Although I’m not sure why, when I passed out in front of GLaDOS after I repaired her, she saved me – when I woke up, she was leaning over me in her second ‘emergency’ android body and was wrapping bandages around the wound on my head. I still remembered the little bowl beside her, filled with tiny shards of glass and ceramics, splattered with blood. Had she picked them out of my wounds? I was too dazed to make sense of anything, but all I could think was that this GLaDOS had no idea who I was. Since then, I had been restricted to a single room of my choice – I chose one of the manual override rooms that overlooked the facility, mainly because I could actually run the facility better than GLaDOS in my current state – and so it was.

Until we worked out how to fix her, we had cut her off from the facility entirely, in case if its mainframes tried to interfere with our work. Now, keeping the facility stable and safe was entirely my job, which was great because it’s not like I had anything better to do. Sometimes I struggled, but all I had to do was remind myself of why I was doing it in the first place and I would get back on track. 

Like I said earlier, only a month had passed – I could now walk incredibly small distances but my legs were already regaining the strength and muscle lost to three weeks of immobility. My head wound was nearly gone and GLaDOS had recently removed the stitches in my back. I was nearly back to my old self, but I knew things would never be correct until we got GLaDOS back to 100%. I was sitting in the manual override room that had become my bedroom at the main control panel, moving a set of test chambers to an area where they were out of the way. GLaDOS would often come in and watch me when Rosie and Eric didn’t have her half-drugged for their daily attempts to fix her. Today, she was late. I still didn’t have the emotional capacity to think much of it, as most of my free space was already taken up by various things. Sergei was folded up into his default ovular form, sleeping on my makeshift bed. Whenever he woke up and tried to talk with me I would nearly fall out of my chair. Since the incident with GLaDOS, I had become increasingly nervous – my heart was regularly at an abnormally fast pace and most nights I couldn’t sleep from the increasing stress – first I was just worried about GLaDOS, but then it became other, stupid things – what if I mess up and the facility falls apart? What if I can never walk again? What if my heart speeding up is actually me about to have a heart attack? What if I still have pieces of glass in my back/ceramic in my brain, despite the fact that the scans were clear? What if GLaDOS eventually goes insane again and kills us all? What if she was already planning to right at this very second? 

See? Pure insanity. 

I rubbed my tired eyes and tried to focus. Last night hadn’t been good as far as sleep went either. Giving up, I decided to bring up some of the video feeds from the CCTV cameras around the facility and watch what everybody was doing.

The first camera was from the CCTV outside this room’s door. Eric was standing right outside the door, his hand hovering over it. It was like he was frozen in time, before he took a step back, cursed under his breath and stormed away. Had he been scared about coming in? What was that about?

The second camera was from the CCTV in Rosie’s office. GLaDOS was lying on her surgical table, trapped somewhere between consciousness and sleep as Rosie flicked through something on her computer, a surgical mask covered in oil around her mouth.   
“Damn it, still nothing.” The older scientist hissed, slamming her fist down on the table which caused GLaDOS to snap awake. Whatever she had done to the AI this time, I had luckily missed it. Feeling my stomach churn, I switched to another camera. 

The third one showed Eric talking now to my mother, who was only a few paces down the corridor. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but Eric seemed incredibly nervous and mom was glaring at him with the same intensity that she normally glared at me with when telling me off. I wondered what he had done before moving on. 

The fourth one was Wheatley and his three corrupted core friends goofing off in the Break Room – it gave me a few minutes of relief to see them trying to have fun before I turned back to the task at hand. Those damn test chambers wouldn’t move themselves.

All of my days since the incident had been much like this, with no notable change to my daily routine since. By the time anybody came to visit me, it was coming up for evening – and, much to my surprise, my visitor was GLaDOS. Whether it was because somebody had told her to or because she saw me as her patient, she had brought me a rather large, intimidating plate of food – food that undeniably looked delicious and I had not eaten that day. 

I barely even noticed at first when she opened the door with no warning, let it fall closed behind her, set the plate down on the panel and then sat on a fold-up chair beside me, staring out into the facility she vaguely knew was her own.   
“What are you doing?” She asked bluntly.  
“I’m adjusting the incinerator’s temperature.” I replied with, my voice rough – I hadn’t spoken in two days.   
“Oh. I see.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she sounded guilty. There was silence for a few minutes as I continued my work.  
“C-Can you show me how to work this?” She requested, her voice almost feeble.  
“You mean you don’t know how?” I couldn’t conceal my surprise.   
“These controls were designed for human use in times where I did not exist.” She reminded me, her usual tone back.   
“Well, I suppose I can…” 

It was strange, teaching GLaDOS something. It had always been the other way around. She’d taught me so much in my time here, that thinking back on it all was staggering. Her android body’s athletic form leaning over me, her hands placed solidly on the control panel was incredibly comforting. It felt like old times. I taught her what each control did, what each pull of the lever would do – how to pick up and move the test chambers and how to adjust the facility’s overall temperature and stability. She caught on quickly and soon it was just as natural to her as it would be if she was issuing the same commands through computer code. However, she made sure to complain frequently about how much easier this would be for me if I was a computer like her. Of course, much like I usually did, I ignored her comments.

She left without another word. Her departure was like a cold sting to my heart – a reminder that we were no longer close. Mom came into the room like she often did at this time, mainly to make sure I was eating – however, today her mannerisms were different, like her reason for disturbing me was something else. I never even got to ask her before she cut in front of me.  
“Turn on Communication Channel Five and the speakers.” She ordered, the grin on her face unlike anything I had seen recently. Too deflated to even bother replying, I did as she asked, just as Wheatley slid into the room behind mom on his management rail. 

The radio connection was static for a moment. It suddenly cleared and a voice rang through like it was on the end of a telephone. I identified this voice immediately.  
“Hello?”   
“Granny!” I shouted in joy, nearly forgetting about the delicate condition of my legs in order to rocket out of my seat – which quickly backfired and I was on the floor in seconds.  
“Yeah, it’s me – I’m sorry it took so long to get a hold of you all,” She sounded deeply concerned. “I can finally get through to you now that GLaDOS is preoccupied.”  
“With what?” I asked, confused and I heard Wheatley laugh.  
“I set ‘er up with one of the old machines on the lower floors – she’s so busy playing around with it that she’s lost her hold over the access system!”   
“You’re kidding – Wheatley, that’s brilliant!” I wrenched him from his place on the management rail and hugged him tightly against my chest, causing him to cough awkwardly and look away. As I sat him on my lap, granny spoke up again.  
“I don’t have too long. I wanted to tell you all that I’ve worked out what happened to GLaDOS, and I might be able to fix it from in here without you guys having to lift a finger.” Her voice rumbled pleasantly out of the control panel speakers.   
“Give us the details.” I requested.  
“When Caroline installed the new DM Module into GLaDOS, a process took place in which GLaDOS’ automatic operating system has to recognize, validate and install the new hardware. This process normally happens with no problem, but… well, there is sometimes a small side effect,” She began. “We hadn’t completed GLaDOS at the time she killed everyone, so any bugs we were yet to fine-tune out of her hadn’t been touched – and this was one of them.”   
“What does it involve?” Mom asked, her voice shaking with anticipation.  
“Basically, whenever new hardware is installed into GLaDOS, a small glitch in the operating system’s installation attempt can sometimes cause the operating system to mistake the ‘installation’ command as the ‘system wipe’ command. The results would vary – very rarely, the glitch would wipe everything – other times, this glitch would only wipe some of her data, but not enough to affect her. Most of the time, this glitch only wiped her memories from the past day or two. It seems that this time around, only some of her memories have been erased.”  
“So, what do you have planned?” I piped up – I thought I caught my eyes gleaming in the reflection of the room’s window.   
“We could never fix the glitch but we did have a way to counter it. We set up an alternative backup system alongside GLaDOS’ ordinary backup system, which was programmed to backup GLaDOS’ entire system and everything stored in it every time new hardware was installed, to save her in case of the glitch taking effect again. However, we never got the system tested before she went haywire. If it’s worked, and I can locate the backup from when Caroline installed the new DM Module… I can upload everything that was deleted back into her main system and all of her memories will be back like they were never gone. Then, I can work on repairing that glitch for the future.”   
“That’s perfect!” It was the first time I had shouted for a long while and my voice cracked under the strain.  
“We’re counting on you, Mom.” Mother spoke up. It was the first time I had heard her refer to granny as family.   
“Don’t worry, leave everything to me.” With no warning, the connection was severed and the Channel returned to static. Still, hearing this news was enough to leave smiles on our faces. Wheatley stayed with me the rest of the night, chattering away about heck knows what – mainly excited ramblings about our earlier conversation with granny. He was a great help and did a lot to stop me falling back into my usual depression. When he finally suggested that I go to bed, I set the facility onto autopilot and stuck him back onto his management rail. He opted to stay with me tonight, just to make sure I was okay. I gave him a kiss on the side of his metal face like I had that night in my turret workshop and hobbled into bed. I heard him give a restrained giggle and smirked. The cute little moron had come to mean so much to me.

Getting over to the bed hadn’t been the least bit painful on my ankles. I could probably start moving around the facility tomorrow, even if it was only a trip down and back up the hallway at first. Perhaps, things were finally starting to look up. Second time lucky – things would be back to normal soon.


	19. Revival

It had been about two weeks since Caroline had told us her plan. She kept in contact with us daily, but so far she had had no luck in restoring GLaDOS’ memories - she had been unable to find the location of the backup and since she was no longer forcibly linked to GLaDOS, she no longer had the benefits of searching for files through her, which would have taken a manner of seconds. Instead, she was searching on her own, and so far it had taken her the whole two weeks to sift through only a quarter of GLaDOS’ files, which had proved entirely fruitless.

During my daily meeting with her, in which she spoke to me through the radio console like she did two weeks previously, she had no new findings to report.  
“Still nothing,” She said gravely. “But you wouldn’t believe the amount of crap she has in here. She is literally a talking encylopedia.” If the tone of her voice was any indication, she seemed very over-excited about something. “I’ve just come across her collection of scientific essays – not all of them are necessarily scientific, but they’re so interesting! She has essays from some of the best minds of this planet, and there’s some that she even wrote herself! Oh, she has other stuff too, like folders full of pictures and – oh…”  
“Hm?” I turned back to the console.  
“She – she has a folder called ‘Things to show Caroline’.”

If it was possible for my mood to sink any lower than it would have gone through the floor. Casting my eyes to the ground, I turned away from the console.  
“She’s got all kinds of things in here… maps, pictures of places, people, cars, buildings, animals… wow.” Her voice was quiet and careful.  
“Granny?”  
“Y-Yeah?”  
“Please,” I looked back to the console, tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t hold them back anymore. “Please bring her back to us. I want her to show me these things herself one day.”

There was silence for a moment.   
“Understood.” Then, the connection went cold.

Another week passed by unsuccessfully. I did my best to stay out of everybody’s way – I only seemed to have the patience for Wheatley, who took to accompanying me on my journeys around the facility. My legs were pretty much healed – I still couldn’t walk very far, but that was only because they were still weak. They were no longer broken, and I think I had the Long Fall Boots to thank for that. I even took them off and walked around a little – I was completely fine, thank God. With the assistance of the elevators and the various office chairs scattered around, I could pretty much make it anywhere in the facility again. 

For some reason, in my stressed out state of mind, I had managed to find only one place that could calm me. I now spent a majority of my time down in the old facilities, particularly the 1940’s sector. I would bring Wheatley with me – luckily, he wasn’t too heavy, as there were no management rails this far down – and most of the time we would just sit on the edge of the fallen walkways, looking out over the stagnant waters of the old salt mines and talk. Today was a little different, however – mother had Wheatley helping her with something around the facility, so I was left to entertain myself. I could tell she was worried about me, but she chose not to object when I stormed past her and headed straight for the elevator that would take me down to the facility’s ‘Spring’ level. It didn’t matter to me either way, as long as I was left alone. 

The journey, for obvious reasons, was unusually quiet and peaceful. It was strange, at first – descending into the deepest parts of Aperture without Wheatley, I mean – but it didn’t take me long. It seemed that my legs felt like cooperating fully today.

When I arrived to my usual seat, I slung the Portal Gun over my back into its holster (that I designed, thank you very much) and sighed, relishing in the silence. Sometimes, being able to hear everything that was happening in the facility got a bit too much, especially right now. Everybody was so busy trying to fix GLaDOS that it was difficult to even sleep at night, there was such an intense racket. I thought back to yesterday afternoon – when I had walked into GLaDOS’ chamber to see Rosie fiddling about with the back of her chassis.  
“I hope you’re aware of how much of a pain you’re being.” GLaDOS had grumbled to the scientist, her optic narrowed. Upon my entry, Rosie seemed to relax a little – however, I didn’t think much of it.  
“I know, but just bear with it. This could help us get your memories back.” Rosie replied, to which GLaDOS seemed to give a comical roll of the optic.  
“I still don’t know what memories you mean. There’s a black hole in my memory chip but that will come back to me eventually. These memories couldn’t have been important if I forgot them in the first place.”  
“You’re talking like this because you don’t remember them. Stop being so stubborn.” Rosie scolded, but GLaDOS simply hauled herself up higher.   
“I dare you to order me around again.” The AI hissed. At this, I left the room – every time I saw her it hit me just as fiercely as it had the first time – she really was back to being the heartless, psychopathic AI that I first met. 

Caroline had told me that progress had been made, but not much. It wasn’t enough. I didn’t feel any better. I missed the GLaDOS that I’d got to know. I missed the GLaDOS that I used to spend most of my time with, telling her about the world outside and listening to her recite articles of history from her vast database. I miss deliberately pissing her off, and smirking triumphantly as she stubbornly argued with herself about flooding the room with neurotoxin. I miss testing with her, helping her with her experiments, debating with her – trying to prove her wrong was always the best part. Even when I defeated her, she came up with a huge list of reasons to explain why I was still wrong, normally to do with my weight or ‘Neanderthal’ upbringing. 

I missed her so badly, I wanted her back. If I had to work from the ground up again, I would. If it took me another year to bring GLaDOS back to the way she had been before the incident, then so be it. There’s no such thing as a bad robot, just bad people and bad upbringings. That’s what she’s taught me. She might be condescending, she might be sarcastic and nasty, she might usually be in a bad mood – and she might also force us to test. But she has the ability to care. Before the incident, she cared for me and possibly the others, even if she tried not to show it – well, besides Eric. She wanted him dead. She never did tell me why…

Being as quiet as it always was down here, loud noises and other sounds were an abnormality. I jumped slightly out of my dreamlike state to notice for the first time that the giant ‘Aperture Science Innovators’ sign protruding out of the water had the A in ‘Aperture’ missing. I smirked. It had been there yesterday!

Wait a minute, what was that sound? Somebody walking?

More out of annoyance than fear, I turned around and glared, trying to catch sight of the person destroying my peace so I could show them how frustrated I was. Finally, I saw GLaDOS approaching me, wearing a slightly different attire than usual. She was clad in grey combat pants, thick laced military-style boots and a plain white tank top – I never saw her dressed like this much. She claimed it was her ‘mechanic’ outfit, the clothes she wore when she had to do physical work around the facility, like repairing machines by hand and such. I couldn’t help it – my expression turned to shock and I shyly turned away, locking my gaze back onto the half-submerged sign across the water.   
“Your mother’s looking for you.” She spoke. Her voice was amplified tenfold by the echoing caverns, making her seem so much more powerful than she already was.  
“I’m not going.” My reply was much quieter, but she still heard it. Rather than pick me up and throw me into the deep abyss of the water like I would have expected from this GLaDOS, she simply stood beside me and crossed her arms, looking out over the water much like I was.  
“Why?” She asked.  
“There’s nothing for me up there.”  
“You’re a test subject. Technically I should be killing you for leaving the facility.”   
“Technically, this is still the facility, so you couldn’t kill me anyway.” I felt myself smirk for the first time in a long while. GLaDOS’ face was stony as ever, but despite this she sat down beside me and dangled her legs over the edge of the platform. I caught sight of a little screen on her back, usually covered by her dress. It was just below her plug-in socket and usually displayed the android body’s overall condition, battery levels etc. But when GLaDOS was doing something, such as uploading a file somewhere, a little ‘Loading’ screen would be there instead with a percentage bar. This bar there and was at 81% already. How odd. Perhaps it was Caroline trying to gain access to some top-security files, as GLaDOS did not seem to be aware of it. 

We sat there for a few moments in silence.  
“There used to be lots of humans here, once – in the facility that you left without permission.” She began suddenly and I sighed, sadly. “They built me, supposedly. I don’t remember liking any of them.”  
“I know, GLaDOS.” I focused on the sign, trying to will away the tears. She’s already told me this once before – before the goddamn incident!   
“In fact, I killed them. They only got in my way… but I was very lonely after that.” She continued.   
“I know…” I replied listlessly. I thought I saw her blink in surprise and suddenly withdraw from something, but I simply ignored it.  
“But there was a crazy mute who tried to kill me twice and I let her go… Let her be somebody else’s problem, I said to myself. I hoped the coyotes would get her so I wouldn’t have to.” She ranted. The story was worded differently from the last time she had told me it – it sounded more genuine, like she was being truthful with me for once – for the first time since the incident, in fact.  
“But one day, I remember that she came back,” I perked up, intrigued. “She had offspring with her – a daughter, who I became somewhat fond of.” 

I was speechless. That was GLaDOS language – she’d pretty much just admitted that she cared deeply for me.  
“Then a while later I woke up one morning and they just weren’t here anymore and you were lying down, staining my floor with blood. I wonder where they’ve gone.” The Loading bar on her back was at 99%.

Acting in the spur of the moment, I twisted around to face her completely.   
“GLaDOS, I need you to look at me.” I demanded. She seemed to spend a moment wondering if she should disobey, before grudgingly turning around in a similar manner to face me. She examined me for several moments, increasingly losing interest. Suddenly, she paused and appeared disorientated, looking around rapidly like she didn’t quite understand what she was doing here. Finally, she looked back to me, something about her face demanding an explanation.  
“Well? Do you know me?” I asked, urgently. I wasn’t expecting the reply I got.  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Oh. “Of course I do.”

Oh?

“You’re just as bad as the moron. I don’t even know why I keep you alive,” She crossed her arms and looked back to the water. “You’re the second Caroline Johnson, in case if you forgot your name too. Imbecile.” 

…She called me Imbecile.

Ignoring the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks, I rushed at her and wrapped my arms around her neck. I wasn’t expecting her to respond, I wasn’t even sure why I thought hugging her would be a good idea!  
“…Cuddling between Aperture Science employees is strictly prohibited.” She reminded me sternly.  
“I know.” I sobbed. She didn’t push me away, she didn’t even move for several moments.  
“Cuddling is a human invention normally used to express emotions to another – commonly it is a form of greeting, or a way of saying ‘I’ve missed you’.” I felt her arms start to relax. She wrapped them around me and pulled me into the tightest hug I’d ever felt in my life. 

I was so relieved that everything I tried to say to her came out as sobs or gibberish. When I finally released her from the hug, she stared at me with a raised eyebrow, only observing as I tried desperately to talk properly. Thank you, Granny! Thank you so much! 

“I am not one for emotional comforts,” She spoke, crossing her arms again. “But it was often said amongst Aperture Science employees that cake can cure anything.” When I finally cleared my eyes enough to see her clearly again, she was smiling. Not a huge smile, but a small, calm one – not like her usual psychotic grin or her know-it-all smirk. It was a genuine smile. She moved to stand up and I desperately grabbed hold of her hand – I felt so weak, so pathetic in the presence of her. A part of me still feared that she would lose her mind again or disappear completely. My limbs were like jelly.  
“Will you shut up if I make a cake?” She questioned, her hand tightening around mine. Still unable to form a reply, I simply nodded. Saying nothing, letting her face fall expressionless once more, she pulled me up from the ground and walked along in front of me.  
“The longer we take to return, the more the moron will destroy my facility. Hurry up.”

I nodded, smirking, wiping my eyes clear of tears. Yes, ma’am.


	20. True Legends Never Die...

The night was cold and starless. A full moon cast the Enrichment Centre in an ominous glow. It was unlike anything the Vortigaunts had seen before and yet it felt familiar to them all the same – an ancestral memory deep within their souls stirred, warning of a time long since passed that threatened to return. 

They stood calmly at the edge of the forest, casting their multi-lidded eyes up at the Enrichment Centre, which they dared not go near. Frank had no knowledge of them leaving the camp – their motives were their own, and unknown to all but themselves. As much as they had grown to trust the humans, this matter must be handled privately.   
“They draw near.” Their designated leader, who was called Orion by the humans, broke their long-term silence.  
“With the coming of the next moon they will be here.” One spoke.  
“They seek what we seek,” Another croaked. “They seek the location of the human structure… ‘Borealis’.”   
“What can we do to tip the scales in our favour?” Orion turned away from the Enrichment Centre and looked to his comrades.

There was silence for a moment as they all gazed listlessly at the supposedly abandoned Research Facility. It was unlike them to be caught in the vulnerable position of not having any ideas.   
“We must bide our time. Act when they do not expect.” Orion hissed with a hint of bitterness.  
“Explain.” One of his companions prompted.  
“When it appears that the key to the Borealis is lost, then we can act.” He rephrased himself and was acknowledged quietly be his fellow Vorts. They all turned to face one another, chanted words that we will never be able to grasp and disappeared in a green flash of light, which faded away and left no evidence of them having been there at all.

***

Life was good – well, as good as it could be in our situation, but we were happy with it all the same.

Some people, if there were any around, might call us crazy – mother, myself, Eric and Rosie – but ours was a lifestyle we had no wish to trade for luxury or even contentment. Life wasn’t amazing, true – but at least it was interesting. Besides – we have robots!

“Atlas, pass me the wrench.” Gazing up into the innards of the broken Auxiliary Power Generator, I held out a hand and listened to Atlas mumble gibberish in his robotic language as he hunter for my request in the toolbox. He then made a chirpy sound of victory and I felt the heavy tool drop into my outstretched palm. Pulling it into my cramped workspace, I continued my duty for the day.  
“Thank you, Buddy.”  
Atlas gave a few chirps that sounded suspiciously like “You’re welcome” before going back to pestering P-Body. 

The generator, as you most likely know, keeps the facility lit and its vitals going when GLaDOS loses control or is somehow disabled. Recently, GLaDOS detected some sort of fault in its hardware – then, it broke altogether. The thing was ancient, ‘Dead Technology’ according to GLaDOS, but it was required that we keep it running. I had been tasked with fixing it and it was proving difficult.

Just as the infernal machine squirted oil in my eye, Wheatley rolled in on his rail, accidentally disconnected and hit P-Body on the head. The noise drew me out and I took a towel to my eye, rubbing furiously until the invading substance was removed. Then, spotting the commotion, I threw my hand out and grabbed hold of Wheatley, taking him onto my lap. He grumbled nonchalantly for a moment more before focusing his honeycomb-patterned optic on me, laughing in his version of a grin.   
“Hiya, Luv!”  
“Hey, Wheatley!” I replied and wrapped my arms around his body, pressing my cheek against his face in our version of a hug. Then, I set him down and slid back under the generator, continuing my work. Replace this wire, connect this one here, switch these two around… Jeez, who designed this thing? I was surprised it even functioned.   
“What’re you doing down here?” I asked him, closing the generator up and pushing myself out from underneath. He glanced away for a moment, as if going shy.  
“Well, today is your birthday – so, I thought I’d try and make it a bit more… eh, exciting for you.” He stuttered, to which I grinned and the two robots beside us attempted to whistle at us.   
“In what way?” I questioned, scooping him up and lifting him back onto his management rail. I hadn’t told anyone about my birthday – it had never mattered much to me. Mom had probably told him. I was eighteen – apparently it had been an important age once, but no longer. I certainly didn’t feel any older, but I never usually did. Sometimes my birthday came and went but I didn’t even notice.   
“Well, I couldn’t get you a present – that’s, that’s my fault actually – but I did think of a solution!”  
“Oh, really?”  
“Yeah! I’m going to tell you a story!”

At this I smiled fondly, placing a hand on the side of his casing. Wheatley’s stories were the best – despite his awkward speech at the best of times, he had a remarkable way with words that made the scenes he described come to life before your eyes. Usually they were about strange memories he had – memories that he was absolutely certain weren’t his, but they were saved in his files anyway – tales of humans, the building of GLaDOS seen through the eyes of an employee, somebody who lived in the world before mine.   
“This story, it’s a little different.” He told me as we reached the Break Room, Atlas and P-Body in tow. I sat down on one of the couches – the co-op testing bots met some kind of untimely demise behind me, tripping over one another and ending up in a pile of robotic limbs on the floor. Wheatley dropped from the rail and landed into my outstretched arms. I sat him on the seat beside me and caught sight of GLaDOS’ camera focused intently on us.   
“Well, what’s this story about?” I questioned.   
“This is the story about how I returned from space!”

GLaDOS’ camera rolled its optic dramatically and turned away, suddenly finding Atlas having a verbal argument with the broken drinks machine very interesting.

Turns out, Wheatley’s journey home wasn’t a short one. I couldn’t decide how much of it he’d made up, if any. First of all, he and the Space Core spent three years together in space. Due to several incidents, including getting caught in a vicious meteor shower, the two were hurled even deeper into space than mom and GLaDOS had set them. Eventually, they fell into another solar system and were pulled into the gravitational pull of a planet, which dragged them down to the planet’s surface. He explained that this planet was remarkably similar to our own, even the civilians seemed connected to us – except, this world was several centuries behind us, at least in terms of technology – still fighting with swords and using tar to light fires. He came to know this new world as ‘Tamriel’. He was found by a strange man who apparently looked like a walking, talking lizard, dressed in devious-looking red and black knight-style armour. They became good friends – the Space Core was found a while later in a swamp nearby the coast of a place called Skyrim.

The story got very heated after that – apparently his new lizard friend took him everywhere on the back of his horse. He saw his new friend shapeshift into a wolf and tear apart a whole group of enemies, he got to see different dimensions belonging to ferocious demon lords (this is where I began to think he was making things up) and he apparently soared above Skyrim with his friend on the back of a crimson red dragon. Then, there was an accident concerning a dragon spitting him through the stratosphere and he was on his way back to Earth. Another three years later, he landed in the water off the coast of Mexico where he was retrieved two weeks later by Atlas and P-Body, who had been sent by GLaDOS to retrieve him and bring him back to the Enrichment Centre, where she stuck him in Android Hell for ten years.   
“To be honest, I didn’t even miss here that much – life there was amazing, like you wouldn’t believe it! You wouldn’t even think that a place like that could be real, Luv, but it was – I’d love you to see it. B-But, I have no complaints about being back here – I wouldn’t have met you otherwise!” 

I smiled, patting him on the head. At the time, I was amused by the whole thing – the idea of Wheatley living on another planet only to get sent back by accident was hilarious. However, I wouldn’t be laughing much longer. If anything, I’d be grateful for his experiences. 

I stepped into GLaDOS’ chamber at her request, only to be stopped by a sight that worried me. She held herself in a concerned manner, staring with the utmost focus at a single monitor that was dangling in front of her face, displaying what appeared to be the stats for several of the facility’s vital pieces of machinery. Before I could speak up, she stuttered.  
“Something is very wrong here.” 

I strutted up to her, tapping her on her crisp white underbelly. She swung around and lowered herself to my height, staring at me just as seriously as she was at the monitor mere moments ago.   
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, not waiting for an invitation and hoisting myself up onto her back. She raised herself back up to the monitor and highlighted three of the stats lists – these particular three were going haywire. Upon closer inspection, it was the autopilot for the turret production line, the automatic incineration system and the auxiliary power generator (AGAIN!?)  
“These three are malfunctioning and are refusing my attempts to run a diagnostic. That can only mean one thing.”   
“And what one thing is that?”  
“It is possible that somebody is tampering with our equipment from outside the facility, and is sending out a jamming signal so I can’t interfere with their work – however, the auxiliary power generator is probably just your shoddy repair job.” She sounded worried – but her voice returned to its usual sarcastic tone before I could even dwell on it.  
“I think you mean my splendid repair job!” I huffed.   
“No, it is quite the opposite. I mean, just look at those figures.”  
“Oh, shut up. You knew that Eric would have been better for the job.”   
“I don’t like talking to him, but I can tolerate you; therefore you were the better choice.” 

Basically, the moral of this story is – don’t brag about your handiwork around GLaDOS because she then proceeded to make me fix all three machines.

But the problems did not stop there. For two weeks more the entire facility was on the fritz with GLaDOS unable to fix it. She couldn’t track the jamming signal and mother and I would often scout outside to see if we could find any trace of our nuisance – but whoever it was, they had left no clues – not even a disturbed leaf – behind. We weren’t even sure if they’d stepped on the premises at all.   
“Whoever’s doing this must have some wicked equipment,” Mom growled as we trudged once again empty-handed back to the facility. “To be able to pierce through Aperture’s defences and break all our machines without even being on the facility’s grounds…”

So that got me thinking. Who on Earth could it be? None of the human rebels could possibly possess equipment of such a high caliber. There wasn’t really anybody else it could be, though – mom had told me that the aliens – the Combine, if I remember rightly – left the planet years ago. Any that were left were in small numbers and didn’t even need to be considered.

This particular day, we could hear a lightning storm brewing in the distance. The lightning that flashed was of a bright green colour, but I ignored this – probably just a strange anomaly or something. We passed through the facility on full alert, knowing full well that anything could break on us at any time. Eric had been stuck in one of the elevators since yesterday – I don’t think Rosie had managed to get him out yet. Luckily, we reached GLaDOS with no incident, apart from a few lights breaking above our heads in the main hallway. We walked in to the amusing sight of GLaDOS agitatedly swaying from side to side, but keeping her gaze focused on the three monitors she had hanging in front of her. If the flashing red boxes on them were anything to go on, everything in the facility was now out of whack.  
“Somebody is messing with my facility,” She growled to herself. “And when I find out who it is I will dip them in a vat of acid, leave them in Android Hell for twenty-one years, kill them, reanimate them, dip them in another vat of acid-!”   
“GLaDOS!” I snapped her to attention.  
“Anything to report?” She sounded a little desperate.   
“Not even a trace of them. Plus, a storm is coming.” Mom told her, causing the gigantic supercomputer to deflate, staring at the floor.  
“I’ve lost control of everything but myself and this room,” She informed us.  
“We gathered that.” I mumbled, just for mom to hit me upside the head.  
“I… I don’t know what to do.” She admitted, finally gazing up at us with her bright golden optic. That was the first time in a long while that GLaDOS hadn’t had a solution for something. We couldn’t keep up with the rate at which things were going wrong and we couldn’t even fish out the root of the problem to stop it from continuing. We were doomed if we couldn’t find our little hacker and deal with them.   
“WARNING: SECURITY SYSTEM CORRUPTED. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED.” The forever annoying Aperture Science automated announcement system cheered, causing GLaDOS’ optic to widen to proportions I thought were impossible and she veered around to check the monitors. The Security System was the automated protector of Aperture – it ensured that all doors were locked and guarded from hacking, only opening upon word from GLaDOS. The Security System was also responsible for keeping the arm panels that defended the building’s exterior in place and sturdy. Without it, the facility would be wide open – to weather, man-eating animals and invaders of any kind. 

So, I could kind of sympathise with her when GLaDOS was thrown into an uncharacteristically full-scale panic.   
“NO!” She cried, doing everything in her power to restore order to the Security System. Every time she tried, the screens filled with vicious error messages. “Nononononononononononono-!”  
“GLaDOS, calm down.” I scolded, raising my voice just enough for it to pierce through her veil of panic. She stopped shaking, lowering herself from the monitors to face mom and I.  
“Apologies,” Her pixelated voice was hoarse. “I can’t think of a solution to this problem if I’m going to keep going berserk like that.”   
“Remember, we’re here to help. Anything you need us to do, just say.” Mom piped up.  
“…I’d like to say that’s comforting, but I can’t because it’s not.” GLaDOS replied, to which I could only smirk.   
“Nothing new there, then.” 

The door to the chamber opened and in rushed Rosie, more terrified than I had ever seen her. She was covered in oil – and blood.

“We’re being attacked!” She spoke with what little volume she could muster, her voice frail from exhaustion.   
“By what? The rebels?” Mom asked, spinning around to face her. GLaDOS drew herself up to the ceiling, recommencing her earlier swaying.   
“N-No – well, I’m not sure – but they’re armed…”

That was when she rolled up the sleeves of her lab coat to reveal that her arm had been grazed by countless bullets – and one had hit its mark. One had rammed right through her shoulder, leaving a bloodied hole dotted with shrapnel.   
“Oh no, Rosie!” I rushed to her, checking her arm for any unseen damage.   
“It’s okay – none of them have hit anything vital – they just sting a little…”   
“We need to get that shrapnel out, the wound could get infected,” I looked to mom. “Can you do it, mom?”  
“I can certainly try.” 

She grabbed hold of Rosie’s hand and pulled her off hastily, leaving me standing in the chamber, with GLaDOS shaking in terror behind me.  
“GLaDOS, if you panic much more then I’ll start panicking. We don’t want that.” I looked to her and she fell still.  
“I’m panicking for a good reason.” She objected, looking seemingly offended.  
“What reason is that?” I questioned. She looked away.  
“…If I don’t have control over the facility, then I can’t fight them off.”   
“Try to restore power, I’ll hold them back.” I commanded. She froze like a statue.  
“…No.” Her voice cracked with fear and she pushed herself as close to me as possible. I placed my hand on the side of her core – it was like placing my hand inside a boiling hot furnace. I withdrew with a hiss, causing her to flinch.  
“Calm down, GLaDOS! Seriously!” I shouted, poking her in the optic. She nodded, turning away for a moment. Suddenly, countless vents that lined her body flicked open and out erupted several tonnes of steam, heating up the room fast.  
“Sorry,” she grunted. “I would have overheated otherwise.”   
“I’ve never seen you do that before.” I noted, turning to the open chamber door.  
“I’ve never let myself get to this point before.” She explained. I nodded, moving to the doorway. I turned back to look at her, smiling.  
“Calm down and leave this to me.” With that, I stepped out of the room.

Ignoring the flash flooding from the facility’s now burst water pipes that had leaked into my room, I went inside and grabbed my bow, strapping the case of arrows to my back. They weren’t much, but they were all I had. I hoped that somehow, they would be enough.

Ignoring Eric’s muffled screams from within the broken elevator, I ascended the stairs to the break room and slid out through one of the wall panels, landing on the inside of the Aperture logo. Down in the car park below, taking shelter behind thickly armoured black vehicles and ruined cars of all sorts were several armoured soldiers that looked like they were going to war. Their equipment appeared to be very high-tech, not anything I recognized, even with everything about war that GLaDOS had once explained to me. I’d seen the outfits from the two World Wars, the heavily-clad uniforms of the Samurai and the scantily-clad aboriginals from Africa and America, back when it was known as the New World – but this was new to me.

The eyes of their helmets glowed fiercely and were easy to spot even as darkness fell. Their guns were glowing faintly blue, some sort of unearthly technology, definitely nothing we’d come up with. Wait a minute…

Something – or several somethings – loomed over the vehicles. They were like huge, flying overweight maggots with pieces of machinery equipped to their faces and with two spindly arms dangling down uselessly. They had piercing teal eyes – one was looking right at me.

A deafening screech ran through the very fibres of my being, tearing through my brain like a thousand surgical knives. I was brought down to my knees, my vision blurred and my head banged hard against the side of the building – but I didn’t even notice. I was oblivious to all but the pain in my head. By some miracle I never fell from my high vantage point or got shot, but it took me several moments to reconfigure my thoughts in order to escape. I didn’t know what manner of creature I was facing but I had no power to even look it in the eye. 

I tried to reclose the hole I had made out of the facility, only to find that the panel wouldn’t move back into place. So, this is what the broken Security System meant – I had just given them a fucking access point! Brilliant move, Caroline, you fucking genius! My head throbbing, I staggered back downstairs, making a beeline for GLaDOS’ chamber. Eric had finally managed to escape the elevator by himself and was looking worse for wear – but the moment he looked at me, all concern for himself was gone.  
“Caroline!” He rushed up to me, placing his arm around my waist and supporting me along my way. “You’re white as a sheet, what happened!?”   
“We’re under attack.” It was the only reply I would give, with my head swimming the way it was. 

“That thing that attacked you was an Advisor. They were the driving force behind the Combine invasion that happened before you were born.” Mom told me, her expression grave.   
“So what are they doing back here?” A patched up Rosie asked.   
“They wouldn’t be here without a good reason – the last I heard, they had all but abandoned this planet, save a few pro-combine groups of humans. They must have had some reason to return, especially if they cared enough to visit the planet personally.” Mom crossed her arms, gazing down at the floor thoughtfully.   
“Are they looking for something?” I asked, looking to GLaDOS who was focused on the ceiling of the chamber.   
“They could very well be…” Mom replied, her voice only a mumble. 

A noise high above drew our attention to the ceiling. Dust trickled down from in between the wall panels that enclosed us. A deep growl rose from the supercomputer’s virtual throat and she cast a quick glance to us.  
“Get underneath me.” Knowing full well that something was coming, we wasted no time in obeying her.

The panels above us abruptly shattered and fell from their arms and three Advisors screamed in, forming into a line directly above GLaDOS, looking upon her with morbid curiosity.   
“My, my. This makes so many of my essays on the existence of extra-terrestrials obsolete. How disappointing.” GLaDOS moaned. I grabbed hold of her neck suspension and hauled myself up onto her back. If I was quick enough, I might be able to take one of them down before they did any more of that freaky mind shit on me. I drew my bow, loaded an arrow and fired it right into the eye of the middle Advisor, who noticed me at the last minute and didn’t have enough time to try and deflect it. It struck him right in the eye, piercing through his circular visor and ripping the flesh underneath. It let out a shriek so vile that I was reduced once again to my knees, barely managing to cling onto GLaDOS with my free hand. Even she seemed troubled by the noise, shifting slightly. The Advisor wormed its way higher into the air, shaking violently from side to side but failing to dislodge the arrow. Its companions watched it in alarm and then turned on me, the pain from earlier rushed back and I lost all sense. Before I knew it I was falling from GLaDOS’ back, watching her squirm in agony through blurred eyes – whatever they were doing to us affected her as well. Something caught hold of my t-shirt. I spotted my mom, reduced to a snivelling mess on the ground, looking up at me with terror, her unfocused eyes watching something just beyond me. What felt like long, windy fingers gripped me around the waist, turning me around to face – An Advisor. 

He had me in his grip! I found myself looking right into his deep blue eye, unable to look away – the light was almost… enchanting… I couldn’t look away… It brought a sense of calming over me. Everything else became… unimportant.  
“Caroline, fight back!” I heard Eric scream, but I just really didn’t care. Whatever this thing planned to do with me… It couldn’t have been that bad, right…?  
“Look out!” Rosie wailed in anguish from Eric’s side, staring at something I hadn’t yet noticed – the tube-like appendage extending from the beast slowly towards the centre of my forehead. I felt no need to be concerned.

“Oh no, you don’t!” GLaDOS roared and crashed into the Advisor from underneath with the force of a thousand typhoons, knocking me clear out of his grip and back onto her back. I was relieved to have my senses returned to me, proudly restoring my balance and readying another arrow. The mental onslaught had knocked a lot out of her, she hung lower than usual, barely managing to stay focused on the three targets. With two of the Advisors wounded, they had no plans to retreat, but we had no power to fight them off. So, I tried the next best thing.  
“Halt, Advisors! Stop and hear me out!” I called out to them. They grew interested, drawing in close. GLaDOS flinched back but I rested my hand on her core, reassuring her to hold her ground.  
“You know not that of which you face! This being is the almighty GLaDOS – she is a deity with enough strength to wipe us all off the face of this planet with one single attack!” I could practically sense her confusion but she remained still. “You don’t want to risk that, do you? You’re here looking for something; you don’t want it to be destroyed, right?”

They seemed to be frozen for several moments. They then looked at one another and made a series of deep growling noises – their way of communicating, I presumed. After the agonising wait, they looked back to us and I pulled back further on the arrow, aiming at each Advisor in turn.  
“Well? What say you?”

The screeching returned but this time it had no negative effects on us. It seemed to be directed entirely at GLaDOS. She cried out suddenly, dipping and writhing in pain. I struggled just to hang on, but soon even that became impossible.  
“What-What kind of... devilry is this…!?” She gasped. Her metallic hands shot out of various crevices in the room, lurching sluggishly across the chamber until they could clamp around the flabby Advisors, squishing down upon them as tightly as she could. However, they didn’t relent – her unnatural, static-laden crying grew louder and more hectic with each second that passed, until eventually it passed altogether. In complete silence, she stopped shaking and pulled her hands away from the Advisors.   
“GLaDOS, you okay?” I reached down, patting her on the core like I so often did. For a moment there was no response – I noticed that the Advisors were looking at me very intently – then I was snapped up around the waist by one of her claws.   
“What are you doing, GLaDOS!?” Mom demanded. No response. She pulled me down so I was level with her optic and it was like looking at a different robot. A swell of anger rushed through my chest and I twisted around, glaring daggers at the Advisors hovering behind me.  
“What did you do to her!?” I screeched, struggling against her grip – but to no avail. The screeching continued again and she lifted me higher, before throwing me across the room. My back slammed into the wall, cracking the tiles underneath me. Eric caught me as I fell to the floor and rushed with me out of the chamber. The screeching of those damned aliens weighed heavily on my brain, to the point that I couldn’t even see straight. I could just make out Mom and Rosie hectically pursuing us, Wheatley rushing past us into the chamber and GLaDOS attempting to strike us down as we escaped. I was too dazed to even comprehend what had just transpired, so I didn’t even try – the last thing I saw was Wheatley challenging GLaDOS, and then the automatic doors closed behind us.

It was when we finally came to a stop at the entrance to the old facility (the floor with all of those giant springs) that Eric placed me down gently and I managed to piece everything together.  
“They…” I gulped, feeling myself break out into a cold sweat, dropping to my knees. “They were controlling her!”   
“What do they want with us?” Eric looked to mom, hoping for an explanation. She merely shook her head, sighing.  
“I’ve got no idea. They were chased off the planet, so it could just be a force that was left behind – but that doesn’t explain the Advisors. They can’t survive for very long in this planet’s atmosphere, so they must have arrived here recently.”  
“I think I can shed some light on that.” We spun around at the familiar voice to see Granny in GLaDOS’ android body descending the steps from the elevator, looking worse for wear.  
“Go ahead, if you think it’ll help.” Mom grumbled.  
“I’m no expert on aliens – I ‘died’ before they got here – but I think they could be after our lost experiment.” She knelt down beside my collapsed form, bringing me into a half hug with her arm.  
“Which is?” I asked.  
“The Borealis.”

“I’ve heard about that – it was a ship designed by Aperture Science in the 90’s for one of their teleportation experiments.” Mom perked up somewhat.  
“Yeah, it was designed for one of our earliest Portal Gun experiments, when the gun was in its early testing stages. However, the experiment went wrong and we… well, teleported the whole ship and every piece of testing apparatus that was on it. Basically, we lost some really important information that day…”  
“…And the Combine and the Rebels have been in a race to find it since its rediscovery.” Mom nearly collapsed in realization.  
“I think the Combine could be here because they believe they might find a lead somewhere in GLaDOS’ system, which is why they’ve taken her over.” Granny explained.  
“But I thought not even Aperture Science ever found the ship?” Mom pointed out, to which Granny shook her head.  
“No, we never found it… however,” She stood up, helping me get back on my feet. “GLaDOS has the mental power to work it out for them.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is all of it. There was a sequel I started but never finished. I doubt I'll ever go back to it but if there's enough interest I'll upload what I had. Maybe one day I might reboot this entire story, but definitely at no point soon. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did writing it when I was younger. Toodles!

“Okay, we need a plan of action and we need one fast.”

We’d lost track of how long we’d been down here. We were unsure if it was still even the same day. We’d been down here for several hours at least, listening to the sounds of soldiers storming the building, no doubt looking for us.  
“We need to find a way to break their spell on GLaDOS.” I pointed out and Granny nodded in response.   
“It’s getting to her that will be the problem.” She replied with and we slipped into silence again. It was too dangerous to risk a frontal assault, especially because the only weapons we had were a bow and an overpowered android inhabited by my granny. We didn’t even have a Portal Gun! We had no way of fighting back without signing our death warrants! If only we had more forces – or even just somebody who could distract the soldiers and not die while we broke through to GLaDOS. We needed strength in numbers and only then could we work out a suitable plan.

A series of large crashes nearby the stairs and the distressed voice of a turret drew our attention. Lying at the bottom of the stairs was Sergei on his side and supposedly stuck. Mom got up to help him but I pulled her back down.  
“Wait a minute.”

For a moment, he remained on the floor, unmoving. Then, his legs began to wobble, like he was struggling. Everybody’s eyes widened, Granny even gasped. I only smirked as my little turret friend managed to throw himself upright. Proudly, he began to strut over.   
“Are-Are its legs…!?” Granny couldn’t take her eyes off of him. I smiled as I sat him on my lap.  
“Yeah, his legs are jointed and are capable of proper movement now! I did some other things as well.” I spoke, placing Sergei back on the ground. He turned to face Granny, narrowing his eye at her in a grin.   
“I also altered his guns so they shoot twice the bullets, gave him a thicker casing for added protection but changed the material so it’s lighter for him, and…!” I gave him a gentle thump on the side which knocked open a new compartment on his top right and out of it slid a new appendage – a miniature Portal Gun. It appeared as a semi-circular rotating turret which had two small lights on either side – one orange, one blue. Granny’s jaw just about hit the floor.  
“This is amazing!” She scooped up the turret who yelped in delight and examined his legs, now flailing rapidly in more detail. “You did all of that yourself?”   
“Well, it took FOREVER and lots of studying…” I tried to hide my blush. “But yeah, I did.” 

Caroline’s face dropped as if she’d been hit by a powerful realization. She turned to look at me, eyes wide.  
“Do you have the parts to make more of these?”  
“Yeah, I was planning to make a whole bunch of them!” I nodded with a smirk.  
“Good. We’re going to need them.” Her grin in the next moment was slightly terrifying.

Her plan was foolproof. My turret workshop wasn’t too far from here – if we could make it there without incident, we could seal the doors and Granny and I could build some new friends for Sergei. Then, we would feed them to the automatic turret distributor, assume manual control of it and drop them off in various hallways around the facility, where they would keep watch and take down anything that they didn’t recognize. While they were causing chaos, we would send Atlas and P-Body (who were already waiting for us inside the workshop) up to the top floor of the facility, where they would find an old prototype laser weapon that Aperture Science had been working on before the incident with GLaDOS. If it still worked, they were to use it to take care of any reinforcements that were still outside the facility. Once this was done we would then send Eric to knock out the facility’s power which would hopefully switch off GLaDOS and leave the Advisors wide open. Meanwhile, the rest of us would be on our way to GLaDOS’ chamber through the old fire exit route, since the elevators wouldn’t be working. Then, we would take the Advisors down and all would be well.

Since the elevator was so small, we split up into pairs of two – Granny and I, Mom and Rosie and Eric and Sergei. When Granny and I reached the next floor up, we crept out into the hallway, hearing the heavy footsteps of soldiers to the right. Naturally, we headed to the left as silently as we could manage, eventually reaching a set of stairs that led right to my workshop. We climbed the hefty staircase, came out onto the landing and the door to the workshop was revealed – hanging open and with shadows moving inside. 

Just as I was about to step through the door, Granny pulled me back.  
“The bots aren’t alone in there.” She whispered. We peered through the doorframe and what I saw made my blood run cold.

Two of those damning bright-eyed soldiers had the two robots up against the wall with their arms raised, pointing SMGs right into their eyes. Atlas happened to cast his gaze at us and I raised a finger to my lips, willing him not to sound the alarm. He understood and decided to feign further terror, getting onto his knees in front of the soldiers and begging for his life. I sneaked into the room, using the tables as cover with Granny behind me and when we were both standing behind the soldiers, Granny stood up and I coughed to get their attention.

They turned around, both let out a synchronized “What the fuck!?” and granny knocked the guns out of their hands with a single chop. Then, as they reached for their emergency pistols, she grabbed them both by the helmet and smashed their heads together with android force. As their bodies dropped to the floor, I saw that their helmets were bent so far inwards that any chance of survival was impossible. The bots were so thrilled by their rescue that Atlas took Granny into a bone-crushing hug and P-Body did a strange little dance in celebration.

Mom and Rosie arrived a minute later with Eric and Sergei not far behind. I had Eric lock and barricade the door – then, work began. I placed Sergei up on the work table – and then it hit me.  
“Wait a second,” I hissed. “I don’t have any turrets to work on in here.”  
“Not true!” Rosie shouted from the other side of the room. We looked to see her standing beside an open panel in the wall which had been concealing one of Doug Rattmann’s dens - and it had several defective turrets hiding within.  
“Oh hey, pretty lady!” One of them squawked at her. Rosie smirked amusedly and started to lift them all out. Soon nearly every available surface was covered by a defective turret – about fifteen in all.  
“So, why do you have defective turrets hiding in your workshop?” Granny asked me. She looked like she might erupt into laughter at any minute.  
“Well, GLaDOS was destroying them and I felt bad, so I started to rescue them by hiding them in the Rattmann dens. I forgot one of them was in this room.” I said with a grin.

“Alright boys, listen up!” I called to the defective turrets, who stood to attention immediately.  
“I’ve now got the technology to fix you all and make you proper turrets. You’ll be able to fire your guns, you’ll get a case, the whole lot – but, in return we’ll need your help.”  
“Fine by us!” One replied.  
“So we’re gonna get bullets?” Another sounded thrilled.   
“We can kill people!? Finally!!” One shrieked.  
“Precisely!” I responded. I lifted one of them up, placing him on my workbench. Then, I flipped open his eye plate, replaced a broken wire and closed his eye back over, pointing to Sergei.  
“Do you see him?” I asked and the defective turret nearly fainted.  
“Woah! I can see! Well, whaddya know?” Then, he focused on Sergei, who was watching him curiously. “Woah Nelly! You are absolutely beautiful, Squeaky Voice!”   
At this, Sergei’s casing turned ever so slightly pink and he looked down shyly.   
“Thank you.” He replied with. Wait a second, did turrets even have genders?  
“You’re gonna look like that once your repairs are done.” I told him, to which he grew giddy.  
“Oh really, no foolin’? Ohohoho, this is gonna be awesome!”

Fifteen spruced up turrets later, we were ready to begin the next phase of our plan. We gave Atlas and P-Body the two pistols from the bodies of the Combine guards and sent them on their way. They luckily already knew where to go and left the room quite happily. Once they were gone, Granny, Rosie and I worked on carrying the new turrets down the stairs and to the automatic turret distribution chute, which looked like your typical garbage chute at a glance, while Eric kept watch, armed with one of the Combine SMGs. We had to make several trips and we were exhausted by the time we were done – however, at least we hadn’t been seen. Granny uncovered a hidden screen beside the chute and performed a manual override, using the screen to decide herself where the distributor would place the turrets. Five were placed in the living areas, five were placed nearby GLaDOS’ chamber, and the other five were placed in our current area. One was shot out of a secret compartment in the ceiling right in front of us. He turned around to look at us on his new, functioning legs, grinning in delight.  
“Ain’t nobody gonna get past me!” He cheered, before turning back around to keep watch. Good. Now, we just need to wait for the signal from Atlas and P-Body…

***

The two robots in question were so close to the prototype laser that it was painful – however, a large group of soldiers had created something of a barracks there, with orders coming and going as well as individuals. They were stuck together in a rather large broom cupboard, where they could just see two soldiers guarding the entrance to the laser room through the frosted glass of the cupboard window. Every time a soldier passed, they hastily ducked. (I have taken the liberty of translating their robotic jargon into the English language for you. Enjoy.)

During one of their ducking sessions, Atlas looked to his lifebound partner.  
“We’re sitting ducks! What do we do?” He questioned P-Body, who looked to him and narrowed her eye.  
“You’re asking me!? You’re the Einstein who dragged us into this closet in the first place, now you can get us out!” She snapped. His eyebrow raised in surprise, not expecting her vicious reply. Oh well, he thought to himself. I’ll think of something. 

He creaked the door open slightly to see one of the soldiers speaking on his radio. He couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he was clearly worried about something. He watched the soldier click off the radio and step into the laser room, shouting orders to his comrades within. Seconds later every single soldier came rushing out, some struggling to put their helmets back on. Luckily for them, somewhere there was trouble. Soon, not a soul was left upstairs as far as they knew – well, except for them.  
“Quickly, let’s get moving!” He grabbed P-Body’s arm and yanked her to her feet, nearly taking her arm clean off in his haste. They rushed across the hallway and through the entrance into the Laser room. They worked on closing and locking the heavily reinforced slide-down door. Once they’d done that and were satisfied, they crossed the room towards the only object currently of any significance to them – a giant cannon-like structure covered by a protective sheet. Just as they grabbed hold of the sheet, P-Body gasped and fell completely still.  
“Atlas! Don’t make a sound!” She chirped to him and he fell still.  
“Why!? We don’t have time for this!” He retorted quietly.  
“Look over there, in that chair.” P-Body slowly pointed to a dusty old chair propped up against the wall of the room. On it sat a sleeping Combine soldier, his SMG still firmly in his grasp.  
“If he didn’t respond to his commander’s call, then he must be too deeply asleep to be of any bother.” Atlas finally told his companion, only for her to shake her head.  
“I don’t trust him to stay asleep. This laser’s loud when activated.”  
“Caroline II gave us guns, remember?” Atlas pulled his out of a little storage compartment in his leg just to remind her. P-Body stared at it for a moment, before attempting to lift the sheet by herself. Atlas assisted her and soon the laser gun was revealed. It looked not unlike a modern-day anti-aircraft weapon, with a seat mounted on the end in front of the control panel and sporting a six-barrelled Gatling gun.  
“So, this is the Aperture Science Six-barrelled Laser Gun Of Doom.” Atlas sounded almost amazed.  
“I thought it would be bigger.” P-Body groaned, causing Atlas to roll his eye.   
“Let’s get this thing up and running before our friend over there wakes up.” 

The two bots had never used the weapon before, only heard how to use it, so working out how they were meant to shoot at enemies from behind a wall was a bit difficult. Turned out there was a second control panel by their sleeping Combine pal which caused the arm panels in front of the laser gun to separate, exposing the outside to its fiery wrath. Before they turned the weapon on, they had to work out one last thing.  
“So, who’s gonna use this thing?” P-Body looked to Atlas.  
“I think it should be me. I’m fast – they’ll all be dead before they even know it.” He boasted, tapping the metal below his eye proudly.  
“Well, I’m the better aim. Your aim’s as bad as a one-eyed blind human’s aim is with no fingers.” P-Body accused, causing the blue robot to mumble.  
“Just let me do it.” He strutted over to the laser gun’s seat and was strapped in before P-Body could object. With a hiss, she grudgingly activated the arm panels – and the laser gun itself.

All the Combine forces still outside could see was a portion of the facility’s wall creeping away and a giant weapon emerge forward from somewhere within. After a few agonizing moments of standing in complete shock, the weapon had slowly moved around, taken aim at them and was preparing to fire. That was when they finally thought to panic. 

Atlas took great care to destroy their vehicles and artillery before he aimed for the soldiers, not forgetting his task. He was almost starting to enjoy himself behind the control panel of a giant gun which spat out barrages of lasers and energy pellets, when a shadow in the dark caught his eye. 

Lightning flashed from the storm looming over them, casting something twice the size of the Enrichment Centre in a bright light for a second. Atlas could swear that it was some kind of creature, poised on three stilt-like legs and armed with a cannon on its chest. 

“What in the name of GLaDOS’ undergarments is that!?” He shrieked.  
Whatever it was, it needed to be stopped before it literally stepped on the Enrichment Centre. 

Atlas locked the gun on the new invader as best he could in the darkness and opened fire, beating down on the Strider with an onslaught of lasers. The Strider wasted no time in firing back, releasing a cry of outrage which no doubt could be heard for miles. One of the Strider’s shots bullseyed the gun and pieces of excess fire struck Atlas, sending him hurling out of the seat and causing his core to separate from his body. As he rolled away to one side and his body blindly searched for him, P-Body whooped in joy and took her place on the gun.  
“Watch as a pro does it!” She called to him but was thoroughly ignored. She took aim, narrowed her eye and pressed down on the trigger.  
“Adios, you overgrown footstool.” 

The Strider received a tsunami of lasers to the face, but its attempts to escape P-Body’s fury failed. Soon, the creature was dead where it stood, slowly falling back onto its distraught comrades. One soldier, who had been shot in the leg, was unable to get out of the way. He looked up just in time to see himself about to get squished by a dead Strider.  
“Shit!” He cried and a moment later he was no more.

P-Body finished off the remaining foot soldiers and, deeming the area finally clear, stepped down from the gun and helped Atlas put himself back together. It soon became clear that he was wounded, but it was nothing fatal – his left arm wasn’t responding to his commands properly and kept sending him pain signals when he tried to move it. Soon he gave up on it, just letting it hang limp as they brought the gun back into the building and replaced the wall panels. Their Combine friend was still sleeping in his chair. They took care not to wake him as they left. 

***

I spotted the flashing red light on my radio and grinned.  
“There’s the signal! They’ve done it!” I looked to Eric who nodded and headed to leave the workshop.  
“Wait, wait!” A voice I knew all too well sounded from outside the door. “Don’t go yet! Let me in!” I hastily unlocked the door and threw it open, feeling the relief wash over me as I took in the sight of Wheatley – battered and bruised but okay. I pulled him off the management rail and into a hug.  
“Dammit, what were you thinking, facing off against her, Wheatley!?” I scolded him. He laughed cheerfully.  
“Of course I wouldn’t usually, but – but, I’ve got a reason to fight now.” He nodded proudly.  
“That doesn’t matter! You could have died!” I was near hysterical.   
“She’s nearly killed me plenty of times! Actually, if anything I was bored in there! Seen it all before!” He sounded boastful. I couldn’t help it – the thought of him being thrown around by GLaDOS was just too painful.  
“You’re-! You’re such a-!”  
“…Moron, Luv?”

I finally calmed down enough to realize what I had been about to say. He was gazing up at me with that one blue eye, the picture of calmness. He only ever reacted negatively to the word – this was unusual.  
“…Y-Yeah.” I finished. Much to my surprise, he only laughed again. I saw a spark fly out of his eye and my heart seemed to clench up in agony.  
“Well, if being a Moron means I can protect you, then I-I can deal with that, yeah.” 

My entire being locked up. I found myself unable to move for what felt like eons. My face felt like it was on fire and a quick glance around the room revealed that everybody else looked extremely uncomfortable. Granny and Mom were looking away, their cheeks slightly pink.   
“Kids these days…” Granny mumbled.

***

For reasons Eric would prefer not to relay, Wheatley ended up being his guide to the generator room. Eric in truth had no idea where it was and was relieved for the help – but he had no desire for the stream of incoherent bullshit that would no doubt come along with it. It was no secret to Eric that Wheatley had the same feelings for Caroline II as him – it had caused them to clash before, and vicious clashes they were – but he knew that now wasn’t the time for it. He could only hope that Wheatley understood the same. 

Once they reached the maintenance corridors without incident, the amount of blood and bodies they started to encounter set both of them slightly on edge. Some of the turrets must be on this floor, Eric thought to himself, before looking to Wheatley for guidance. Without looking at him, Wheatley nodded ahead.  
“Down this way. Try and stay close, if you can manage it.” Eric ignored the Personality Core’s patronising tone of voice and obeyed him, keeping as close as he dared as they advanced down the corridor. They both froze when they became aware of a ruckus further up the corridor and Eric nearly jumped when a panicked formerly defective turret rocketed into sight on its new legs. It came galloping towards them and just behind it followed two Combine soldiers, shouting and firing their guns.  
“Shit, shit, shit!” The turret screamed, eventually crashing headfirst into Eric and knocking him onto his back. His head spinning, he barely picked up on anything else that happened.  
“Woah, sorry Pal!” The turret yelped before spinning around and popping open his guns, narrowing his eye menacingly.  
“Target Acquired, bitches!” 

The soldiers never even got to take cover before they were shot full of holes.   
“Nice one!” Wheatley laughed, until Eric groaning on the floor got his attention. The defective turret moved on his way, still tripping over his legs and Wheatley waited until he was out of sight before he made any kind of move.  
“Not so tough now, are you?” He snapped back around to face the dazed human.  
“Can we do this when my head isn’t swimming…?” Eric grumbled in reply, managing to sit up, his hand placed firmly on his forehead.   
“What, all it takes is one little bump to get you out-of-commission?” Wheatley’s harsh response. “You humans can be so pathetic, it’s honestly funny!”

At this, Eric smiled deviously, looking at the Core with a glazed over eye.  
“I bet you wouldn’t say anything like that ‘round Caroline, would you…?”   
“’Course not, b-but then again I don’t have to,” Wheatley retorted. “Because she gets it. She, She knows what I’m talking about. Understands it perfectly, she does.”   
“It’s true that Caroline’s not a very sympathetic person,” Eric replied with. “But I’m pretty sure she doesn’t hate humans as much as you do.” Moments later he was back on his feet, his eyes finally level with management rail-bound Wheatley.   
“Even so.” Wheatley turned away then, speeding away down the corridor. Ignoring his still quavering vision, Eric ran to catch up.  
“Why do you like her, then? What makes her different from any other human?” He questioned the robot, who cast him a ferocious glare in return.  
“If you truly felt the same way I do about her, you’d be able to answer that yourself.”

They reached the room containing the power generators without speaking another word to each other. Wheatley zipped away from Eric immediately and he followed the robot to the other end of the room, past the row of huge generators whizzing away to themselves. They came to a state-of-the-art control panel with several buttons, levers and gauges.  
“Somewhere on this panel is how we switch the power off.” Wheatley told him.   
“Any ideas?” The human asked him, to which the core shook his eye in reply.   
“Nope. I’m going to try and hack it, I suggest you stay back.” Wheatley spat at him with a bit of venom. Raising his arms in peace, Eric stood back.

Wheatley accessed the power grid, zipping through all of the different pieces of equipment hooked up to it until he found the control panel for the generators themselves on the list. When he tried to access them, he was denied and a password box flashed up in his vision.  
“Well well, if it isn’t my old nemesis – the password box.” He hissed, to which Eric broke out in a cold sweat.  
“Your last encounter with one of them is the reason that GLaDOS is alive, Wheatley…” He reminded the robot with a wavering voice.   
“I know, I know. Just leave this to me,” He turned back to the panel, glaring at it with more intensity than Eric had ever seen in his life. “Okay, we’ll start off simple. A-A-A-A… uhh... A-A-A?” 

Feeling his insides shrivel up and die at this stupid situation, Eric leaned against the wall and sighed. He happened to glance down and spotted what appeared to be a power cable attached to the control panel, connected to a plug in the wall. As Wheatley was cycling through the next password on his list, Eric dislodged the plug and the Control Panel switched off. Wheatley was just about to go ballistic at the smelly human when everything suddenly switched off, including the lights, casting them in darkness.  
“…You know, I didn’t actually think that would work.” Eric spoke with a small laugh. Wheatley activated his flashlight and cast it on Eric, allowing the human to see the surprisingly calm look on the core’s face.  
“I’ll admit, that was pretty clever,” He nodded, before pointing his light towards the door. “Let’s get out of here.”  
“All I did was pull out a power plug.” Eric mumbled to himself, following the Personality Core out of the room.

***

The second the lights went dead and we were cast in darkness was when we knew Wheatley and Eric had succeeded.   
“Alright, let’s move.” I demanded and we all stood up from our seats. The only guidance we had was the dull glow of Granny’s eyes and markings, so we let her go in front. We were armed with various things we had found in the workshop – I had my bow and the biggest wrench I could carry, mom was dual wielding a pair of large Spirit Levels, Granny had one of the Combine SMGs and a disused iron pipe and Rosie had a box cutter. We were met with little resistance on our journey, apart from a few wounded Combine soldiers, but Granny seemed exceptionally good at cutting them down with a swing from her pipe before we were even aware that they had been in front of us. We reached the walkway to GLaDOS’ chamber relatively quickly – only to see the scale of the Advisors’ damage. They had ripped a hole through the facility’s roof which stretched several metres across, leaving GLaDOS and the chamber totally exposed to the elements – and, of course, we were now caught in the throngs of the lightning storm. Rain pounded down on the open chamber and I could only imagine what it was doing to GLaDOS. She was technically immortal, true, but I could bet anything her body wasn’t.

My palms were sweaty with fear. I could barely keep hold of the bow. I was about to fight GLaDOS. Or, more accurately – try to not die. I’d been in a lot of shitty situations since I first arrived here – but, this was the only one which had ever terrified me so much.  
“Okay, here’s the plan – Caroline and I will work on taking down the aliens, since we’re the one with ranged weapons. Rosie, your job is to work on overriding GLaDOS from inside the Red Phone room – For some reason, she’s still switched on in there and I think the Advisors have something to do with it. No doubt the Red Phone room will be working as well. Chell, you get the job you’re best at – actually fighting her off.”  
At this, mom grinned.  
“Just like old times!”  
“Just keep her distracted and away from Caroline and me – because once we’ve taken those aliens down, that’s the battle won,” Granny said to Chell and then looked to the rest of us. “Remember – GLaDOS is not our enemy, here. The aliens are however, they are our primary targets. We just need to get GLaDOS out of the way so we can reach them.” 

So, we began to cross the walkway. Now I knew what walking into war felt like – approaching your enemy and all you can think is that you’ll either walk away from this, or die. I might not come out of this. It was a bizarre prospect – In a battle of any kind, I was so used to being the stronger person, the one that the odds were always for, the one who was always victorious. This wasn’t the case this time. It could go either way, but only if I was lucky. 

I stopped in the Red Phone room. I could see her in there, silently gazing at a monitor, with the three advisors beside her, watching the screen along with her. I couldn’t bring myself to move forward one more step.  
“You’re scared.” Granny observed from behind me. Wordlessly I nodded. I tensed for a moment when I felt her hand on my shoulder.  
“You don’t need to be. If GLaDOS really does care for you, she won’t be able to harm a hair on your head.” She said with a smile.  
“I don’t know if I believe that.” I replied.   
“Well then, let’s ask her personally.” She grinned and stepped forward, her toes hovering over the edge of the room.  
“You hear me, GLaDOS!?” The computer spun around to look at her, the Advisors hovering dreadfully close. Granny didn’t even seem to notice them, her eyes focused on the optic of the God she was faced with. “You’d really let these lumbering beasts get the better of you!? I can’t believe it!” 

Granny, what are you doing!? Why was she calling her out like that!?  
“You said something to me about two weeks ago, GLaDOS – I want to see if you meant what you said. I know that you’re a compulsive liar, so I want you to prove it to me through your actions! Break free from their control and come back to us!” Her voice rang out loud and clear, like the voice of a politician or even a world leader. I felt myself trembling under the sheer power of her words, and I didn’t even know what she was talking about! GLaDOS seemed to be much the same, tilting her head slightly to the left in confusion.  
“I see that you can’t remember. Then I’ll remind you!” She hollered. An Advisor reached out to grab her but she whacked its hand with the pipe. If the screech it let out in response was anything to go on, Granny had actually crippled its wrist. She whipped back around to GLaDOS and pointed the pipe at her. The supercomputer withdrew slightly, but seemed unable to look away. “You said to me that you would never for the rest of her life ever let anything hurt Caroline! That’s what you said to me, with your own voice, your own conscious! You said that you’d make sure nothing happened to Chell, either! You even said that you were the only person who was allowed to kill Eric – and even Wheatley! The moron! You used to hate him!” 

GLaDOS remained silent, unmoving. The rain thundered down upon her chassis, creating small wads of steam that drifted into the air and soon disappeared.

“Were those words empty, GLaDOS!? Why aren’t you upholding that promise!? Why are you letting your precious facility – their home be desecrated by these heathens!? You’re better than that – you’re stronger than that, sure as hell!” 

Steam erupted from GLaDOS’ vents suddenly, coating us in a veil of misty heat but Granny didn’t even stutter. The screeching of those fucking Advisors commenced and the pain was so excruciating that I was nearly brought to my knees. Still, Granny stood tall.  
“You’ve always been independent, GLaDOS! That day where you killed everybody is proof of that!”   
No response.

“You were never going to listen to us, not even on Day One! You were an individual – capable of thought and feeling! Not even I getting uploaded into your system could change that!”   
Her optic moved slightly.

“So, tell me why, after all you’ve been through – after all the defiance when we were alive, all the death you caused, all the pain and suffering you’ve endured, just to have your freedom-!” The screeching intensified and Granny almost staggered – but she wasn’t done yet. “-do you start finally obeying orders now!?”

It took me a second to realize the wetness running down my face was from tears. I could just see Granny holding out her hand to me. Through the chaos that was my mind, I managed to grab hold of it and she hoisted me up to my feet so I was standing beside her. GLaDOS turned to look at me next, but I felt my voice tighten – I couldn’t say a thing. However, Granny finished off for me anyway.  
“You’re GLaDOS. The GLaDOS! The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System! You bow to nobody. You never will. Any decision you make is your own! So fight back, goddammit! Never in a million years would Mr.Johnson want to hear that the notorious GLaDOS rolled over and played dead for a bunch of aliens like an obedient dog! So fight! BACK!”

The screeching reached an all-time high and one of GLaDOS’ claws slashed through the steam and latched onto Granny, pulling her from the Red Phone room and hoisting her high above the Advisors, whose attentions were now entirely focused on GLaDOS. They were strengthening their hold over her! After all that and all they did was tighten the reigns in response! If that didn’t work, then-!?  
“Caroline!” Granny called to me through the screaming. I looked to her struggling form. “Stick to the plan! Don’t worry about me! Concentrate on the aliens!” 

Hesitantly I nodded. But where to begin? I couldn’t reach them from here, and I couldn’t exactly fly to get to them either. I couldn’t see a thing through the steam so I couldn’t fire at them from here. I had no options – the others, however… 

I looked to mom, whose face was stained with dry tears.   
“Mom, you know what to do!” I called and she nodded, shooting to life. Without even thinking twice she leaped from the Red Phone room and landed on the chamber floor below, drawing the attention of the Advisors and therefore, GLaDOS. The claw released Granny and she fell onto GLaDOS’ back, at which she drew the SMG from her belt and locked on to the Advisor with the arrow in its eye, raining down upon it a storm of searing hot bullets. They pierced through the monster’s already weakened skin. It squealed in agony and fell almost gracefully from the sky, landing with a crash right in front of mom, who stared at it slack-jawed for a while longer. When the screeching was focused once more on GLaDOS, the supercomputer attempted to throw Granny off. She latched on her neck suspension and held fast, casting a glance up at me. Do something, her eyes screamed. I looked back to see Rosie working on her part of the mission, but the computer console was giving her trouble. Everybody was doing their part, it was time for me to do mine. 

Holding in my breath, I took a few steps back and charged for the edge, leaping towards the nearest Advisor. My luck held out and I managed to land right on top of it. It noticed me immediately, the screeching threatened to knock out the last piece of sense I had – but I wouldn’t give up. For GLaDOS! 

I latched onto the piece of equipment attached to its ugly face and used it as a handhold when it flicked upside down and tried to shake me off. I saw the yellow of GLaDOS’ optic and knew I had her attention. Wait a minute – maybe I could work this to my advantage… carefully I spun around to face GLaDOS, gladly letting the Advisor take hold of me – I was right in front of its face. If I was lucky…  
“Hey, GLaDOS! I’m sitting on your boss’s face! Whatcha gonna do!?” I shouted, to which she withdrew slightly in offence. I could only grin as I spotted the claw coming down on the Advisor and I like a hammer. Wait for it… wait for it…!

NOW! The hammer hand made contact with the Advisor, it released me and I clutched on to GLaDOS’ arm as it crushed the Advisor’s head into the floor. That was close! One to go! 

While GLaDOS attempted to shake me off her arm, I noticed the sole surviving Advisor, drifting leisurely towards the hole in the roof.  
“The bastard’s trying to escape!” I called. Hastily Granny took aim but all of her shots missed. Soon, the Advisor was gone – but its hold over GLaDOS for some reason remained. 

Rosie was nearly thrown off her feet as Atlas and P-Body charged past her, jumped off the ledge and managed to grip onto GLaDOS’ face, laughing in their robotic language all the while when she commenced in attempting to forcibly remove them. They were distracting her! This was the moment we needed to head after the Advisor! Rosie organized a group of arm panels into a ramp leading back to the Red Phone room using the console, and Granny and I traversed the facility until we reached the main lobby – still stunk of death from the incident with father, unfortunately.  
“Give me a second.” Granny lifted the shutters around the front doors, revealing the glass doors to me for the first time. Beyond the doors was darkness – GLaDOS had had the doors covered by a thin wall. Nothing Granny couldn’t deal with-

Which she proved upon promptly punching a hole through it and tearing it away like paper. Well, shit. 

We rushed outside to see the Advisor hovering above the car park, watching us. It knew we were following it – and by God did it look pissed. 

Just as I loaded an arrow into my bow and aimed, my radio began to buzz with a horrible static – I knew the noise – it was the noise it made when somebody was trying to talk to me. Quickly I flicked the switch on and turned the radio onto loudspeaker.  
“Can’t this wait!?” I called, expecting Eric’s voice to reply.  
“Well fine, if you want to die, then be my guest. I’ll just shut up and let my body kill you.” The female voice that responded was all too familiar.   
“GLADOS!” Granny and I screamed in unison.  
“Yes, of course it’s me. Who else would bother to get in contact with you of all people?” 

Fighting the tears from my eyes, I smiled.  
“Love you too, GLaDOS.”  
“Listen, defeating that alien is pointless. While they’ve been controlling my body, I’ve seen into their minds – more of their soldiers are on their way here. We have a 0% chance of surviving another wave of them.” She told us as the fight with the Advisor commenced. As I shot arrow after arrow at it, I kept conversation with her up.  
“What do you suggest?”  
“We have only one option – but I have a feeling that you won’t like it.”  
“Anything, GLaDOS.”  
“You’ll have to follow in the footsteps of your mother.”  
“Huh?”  
“I mean, you’re going to have to kill me.” 

It took me a second to process her words. In the space of that second, my heart stopped and my entire world came crashing down.   
“N-No.” I gasped.  
“I’m sorry but it’s the only way. The exact co-ordinates of the Borealis are in my system and that Advisor in front of you is telepathically searching for them even now. I’ve managed to keep them from him but he’ll find them eventually.”  
“Just let him have them, I don’t want to kill you!” I told her while bashing at the Advisor’s face with the wrench when a blow from Granny’s pipe nearly floored him.   
“No, I can’t do that, Caroline. I know why they want the Borealis – they plan to use the technology on board to bring their whole army to this world and destroy what’s left of the human race. I don’t want that to happen.”   
“But GLaDOS, you can’t die!” I complained. I hid behind a nearby car in order to wipe my eyes – I couldn’t aim properly while crying.  
“It’s either me or the entire world!” She retorted.  
“Why do you all of a sudden care about the entire world!?” I screamed and her reply was just as vicious.  
“Because I have people in this world who I want to protect now, that’s why I care! I would rather die myself than see them die, do you understand!?” 

Shocked into silence, I simply lay back against the car door and cried.  
“…Yes, I understand.”   
“Good, now please hurry up. Your mother and these damn robots are driving me insane.” 

Not even bothering to alert Granny to where I was going, I stood up and walked back into the Enrichment Centre. On my way through the front lobby I bumped into Eric, who spoke to me but I didn’t even pick up on him. All I heard was his footsteps rushing outside to help Granny with the Advisor. I had a different fight to join now.

“What do I need to do?” I asked her. My voice was but a whisper.  
“Aim for the optic. Right behind it is my Central Processing Unit – one hit to that and I’ll be good as dead.”   
“Why me, GLaDOS?” I mumbled. She was silent for a long while. When she replied, it was several minutes later and I was coming up to the chamber walkway. From here, I could see Rosie at the console, still working hard.  
“Because as of right now, you are the Stalemate Associate.” She spoke proudly.   
“I thought they only switched cores around? Surely they can’t kill them as well?   
“Depending on the situation, they can do either. Feel honoured – you are the only person I trust enough to give permission to kill me.” 

More tears streamed down my face and I held back a small laugh.  
“I don’t have a badge, though.”  
“I’ll make an exception, just this once.” 

I started to traverse the walkway. I could swear somewhere I could hear deep chanting – it was like a choir of dark angels, trying to set the mood for what I was about to do. I shook it out of my mind – surely I was only imagining things, or GLaDOS was playing a sound clip by accident. Into the Red Phone room I went. Rosie addressed me, but I didn’t hear her. I took my last arrow from my quiver. GLaDOS flailed before me, trying to shake off the robots who were remarkably still holding on. Mom was lying on the floor to one side, seemingly crushed, dead no doubt – not that any of that mattered anymore. The supercomputer took notice of me and I saw her readying her claws.  
“It’s been fun, GLaDOS.” I wiped the threatening tears from my eyes and locked the arrow into place.  
“Admittedly – I agree.”

I started to run.   
“Goodbye.”  
“Same to you, Caroline Johnson the Second.”

The second…? I liked the sound of that. It made me sound like a knight.

I leapt from the ledge and pulled the arrow as far back as it would go, aiming it right at GLaDOS’ optic. Everything slowed down and I felt the wind of her claws just missing me. Taking a deep breath, I released the arrow. It skimmed across the wood of my bow and zoomed painfully slowly towards its target. It was going to be a direct hit. The arrow moved slower and slower, until its tip was mere inches away from the glass of her eye. Time seemed to stop. There was a violent, blinding green flash, a roaring gust of wind and my consciousness slipped away from me, leaving me suspended in darkness. Everything fell silent and, for the first time in a while, I felt at peace.

I never saw if the arrow hit its mark.

***

“This is the place, right?”  
“Yes, this should be it.” 

The rebel leader, Frank stood with a small group of his men just outside the car park of the Enrichment Centre. It was a crisp autumn morning and the mist still rolled in droves around them.   
“A-Are you sure, Sir?” One of his men piped up. “This place looks like it’s been abandoned for centuries.”   
“Probably has been,” Frank grumbled in response. “But the scouts said this is where they saw the Combine heading. If there are some in there, we need to flush them out. They’re too close to our territory for my liking.” 

So, he led his men across the carpark. Taking cautious steps, they entered through a mysterious hole in the wall which had the front doors lying open directly behind it. Despite a few bright orange leaves that lay scattered on the floor, there were no obvious signs of life in the lobby. Frank made the decision to follow the signs for the Top Secret AI Chamber – that sounded like a place where Combine could be hiding.

The walk there was quiet – almost haunting. The place was clearly deserted but Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody had been here up until very recently. What was unnerving him the most about this feeling was the fact that there was no evidence of anybody having lived here in recent years – not even a disturbed patch of dust or fingerprints on a window. 

Finally, they crossed over a windowed bridge towards a huge cylinder. Up the side of this cylinder was printed the word ‘Aperture Science’. The name made him shudder, but he couldn’t seem to think why. They entered a room suspended several feet above the ground which contained a curious red phone, covered in spiderwebs and dust. The computer console beside it had vines growing all over it – and the space within the cylinder itself was like a haven for nature. The place had become like a circular garden, with vines draping from the ceiling and grass and flowers of all kinds flourishing from the damp pouring in from last night’s storm. What drew their attention however was the curious appendage hanging from the ceiling – if Frank didn’t know any better, he’d say it was some kind of machine – but it clearly hadn’t worked for years. Its once white chassis was coated in rust and corroded to a point where it was stick thin. Wires that had once been connected to it further down were now draping from the top of its body lifelessly, swaying every so often in the gentle breeze. The chassis itself was very precisely shaped – it looks like a woman hanging upside down, he realised. Using his men as support, he let himself drop into the garden below and approached the strange monument. He knelt down right in front of it, ignoring the smell of corroding metal and examined what he thought was its head – simple enough, a black shell once filled with lots of parts, covered by a white face which had fallen off and had been overtaken by grass. He spotted an odd circular part which resembled an eye and felt it with his fingers – and what he found, he’d never quite forget.

He grabbed hold of something stuck inside the eye-shaped indent and tugged it out. Holding it against the light, he realized with surprise that he was holding the wooden shaft of an arrow. It had suffered some serious water damage over the years, but he was still able to make out a very faint inscription that had been scratched into the shaft beside the fletching. It read thusly;  
“You’ve just been killed by Caroline II, Jackass.” 

He still hasn’t been able to work out why he knew that name.


End file.
